


The Conspiracy

by Mums_the_Word



Category: White Collar
Genre: Alternate Universe, Assassins & Hitmen, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Terrorists
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-17
Updated: 2015-10-01
Packaged: 2018-04-21 05:43:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4817261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mums_the_Word/pseuds/Mums_the_Word
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter Burke thought that he had Neal Caffrey all figured out--a criminal would always be a criminal. Right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This AU story puts Peter and Neal on a more equal footing. They are evenly matched adversaries. There are frequent references to canon, but the specifics have been altered to fit the tale that I have woven. So, please allow your imagination to embrace a bit of a detour.

     Twilight had just ushered in the dim evening hours, and long, eerie shadows danced along the walls of the old, abandoned warehouse in Yonkers. Peter Burke tried to soften his footfalls on a concrete floor littered with detritus left by squatters, drug dealers, and intrepid teenagers determined to prove their mettle by tagging the place with spray paint. The FBI Agent was on a mission—his own mission, definitely off-book and a personal crusade of his own making. He had gotten a tip that Neal Caffrey had returned to the city, and the lawman had threatened and cajoled all of his clandestine sources until information became more definitive. The word on the street was that Caffrey was meeting with a potential associate this evening in this godforsaken hovel. Peter knew that the intel was shaky at best, so that is why he was here alone instead of with backup. He didn’t need any witnesses if this proved to be a wild goose chase. Everyone in his division knew of his obsessive compulsion regarding the young criminal, so making a fool of himself in front of his subordinates was definitely not an option.

     The agent had quietly climbed the rickety steps to the second story of the decrepit building when, suddenly, a rustling off to his left caught his attention. He instinctively stiffened, then eased his service revolver from its holster. He waited for several heartbeats, and then peered around a massive cinderblock pillar. His breath caught in his chest when he almost came nose to nose with his old nemesis. Caffrey appeared as taken aback as his adversary, and time stood still for a few seconds. Then the apparition, clad entirely in black, turned and bolted across the open expanse towards a metal door. Not bothering to pry it open, he leaped with catlike prowess onto an overhead pipe. Swinging his body in an arc, the athletic criminal propelled himself, feet first, through the glass of a transom and vanished.

     Peter took up the chase, delayed only by the less than cooperative door that reluctantly creaked open on rusted hinges. Caffrey, now a distant silhouette, was making his way across the roof’s expanse. As sure-footed as a mountain goat, he negotiated the deteriorating ridge at the peak of the roofline with deceptive ease. At the end of the building, he jumped, with arms extended out from his sides, onto a lower extension of the structure.

     Pistol in hand, Peter was not to be deterred. Yelling, _“Stop!—FBI"_ to a retreating back, he cautiously put one foot in front of the other, affecting a stiff-limbed walk out onto the pitched slant of the roof. He was sure it resembled a parody of an awkward ballet performance. An evening fog had made any progress treacherous and slippery, and halfway across in his pursuit of the criminal he felt his balance teeter. Suddenly, his body began to tilt ominously, and trying to compensate only made things worse. Then Peter found himself landing awkwardly onto his hip, and a clumsy, rapid descent across torn and jagged shingles ensued. Two stories into the fall, he landed hard onto the broken concrete below, and could almost swear that he heard the snap of bone.

     For a few seconds, the world went white until an excruciating pain registered, front and center, in his brain. His mind processed the sensation and told him that the agony was emanating from his right leg, which he was sure was broken. The older man tried to pull himself upright, but the limb could not bear his weight, and he was embarrassed by the muffled yelp of distress that managed to escape his lips. He slumped back down and tried to even out his labored breathing. At some point, a sixth sense told him that he was no longer alone. He looked up expecting to see Caffrey staring down at him with a gloating expression. Instead, Peter found that his new companion was someone else entirely.

     A broad, swarthy, bearded man was contemplating Peter like he was a bug that needed to be squashed underfoot. He also had a lethal looking pistol in his hand, which was now pointed at Peter’s head. The compromised agent looked around frantically for his own weapon, dismayed to find that it was several feet away, having flown from his hand during the fall. He turned back to his would-be assassin and stared into dark and foreboding eyes. So, this is how it would all end for him, ignominiously in the dirt outside of an abandoned warehouse far from the city. Would he even be recognizable when his body was eventually found? He then thought of his gentle, adoring wife, and cursed himself for being stupid enough to put himself in this situation that was going to make her a widow. Yes, all of these dire thoughts cascaded through his mind in a matter of seconds as his assailant began to put pressure on the trigger of the murder weapon.

     Peter refused to close his eyes. He was determined to stare into the face of his fate until he no longer could. He heard the report of a gun, but never felt the expected impact. Instead, he watched in startled disbelief as a small, round blemish appeared on his would-be killer’s forehead. The big man jerked violently before pitching backwards onto the concrete. In a brief second, the thick ooze of blood and brain matter began forming a halo around his head. Peter swung his own head around, determining with trained perception, that the shot had come from another building across the macadam, perhaps fifty yards away. He was pulled from his bewilderment by a hand on his shoulder. Now he actually was staring into Neal Caffrey’s turquoise blue eyes.

     “Can you walk?” the fugitive asked hurriedly as he tried pulling Peter to his feet.

     Peter reacted quickly, pushing him away and making a frantic sideways lunge for the assassin’s gun that lay close by. Caffrey’s booted foot just as quickly pinned Peter’s hand to the concrete.

     “Don’t, Agent Burke, just don’t,” came the threatening warning.

     Peter realized that Caffrey was now holding the agent’s own gun, which he had apparently picked up on his silent approach. Before another word was spoken, a strafing bullet fired from afar hit the ground between them, kicking up shards of grit that stung the agent’s face. An answering echo was then heard, but before Peter could process that fact, Caffrey stuck the gun that he was holding into the small of his back, and with a strength that belied his lean physique, hauled Peter to his feet. He began dragging him towards a breach in the warehouse walls. They were now in intimate proximity, head next to head. The startled agent could actually smell the younger man’s sweat and feel the tense, corded tendons in his back and arms. As Peter turned to look at his archenemy, he noticed a small, flesh-colored circle in Caffrey’s ear, and knew it was a lifeline to whomever was laying down firepower covering their escape to temporary safety.

     Caffrey roughly deposited Peter on the floor after they had gained access to the building. He then turned back to the opening through which they had just slithered. Once again, the gun was in his hand as he alertly scanned outward.

     “What is the response time of your team, Agent Burke?” he asked without turning.

     When he was met with only silence, the conman looked back at Peter with eyebrows raised. Peter simply stared back mutely in defiance. After a brief second, Caffrey’s face took on an incredulous expression.

     “You’ve come alone, haven’t you? That was both bold and idiotic, Agent Burke. Do you even have a clue what you have waltzed into, or the shit storm that you have caused by being so foolhardy?”

     “Idiotic or not,” the agent sneered right back, “I’ve managed to upset your perverted little scheme to add another notch to your belt. I know exactly what you are! You’re nothing more than a sick sociopath turned lethal psychopath, Caffrey. People always end up dead when they make your acquaintance, so don’t hand me any of that ‘holier than thou’ crap.”

     The fugitive simply stared at Peter for a full minute before responding. “I guess you have it all figured out, don’t you Agent Burke, so perhaps it is you who have a ‘holier than thou’ attitude. That must make you sleep the sleep of the righteous at night. How fortunate for you.”

     “Go to hell!” was Peter’s gut response.

     “It’s not necessary for me to make that trip,” Caffrey rejoined. “I’m already there.”

     Then the young man’s body suddenly stilled, and Peter made an educated guess that he was hearing voices—not some schizophrenic ones, but rather voices emanating from the bug in his ear. With a resigned sigh, he replaced the gun in the waistband of his pants and crouched down in front of the disgruntled agent. A small, wry smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

     “So sorry about this, Agent Burke,” was all that he said before he swung his right arm upwards and his fist connected with Peter’s jaw. It was a fallacy that one saw stars after such a punch. All Peter saw was darkness as he slumped unconscious to the floor.

~~~~~~~~~~

    Awareness returned slowly to Peter, a brightness that he perceived behind his closed eyelids. He was also experiencing a horribly parched feeling in a throat that felt filled with cotton. His limbs seemed heavy, and there was a vague throbbing somewhere in his body. Cautiously, he cracked one eye, then the other, and blinked as he became accustomed to the light of day that flooded what appeared to be a one-room cabin. Peter found that he was lying on a bed, and that a hard, white cast encased the lower part of his right leg. Now he could pinpoint the pain. He struggled to sit up, and that was when he noticed a small needle embedded in his left forearm with a piece of white medical tape over it. He was about to tear it from his body when a voice stopped him.

     “Leave that in place, Agent Burke. It was a means of access required for anesthesia, and now it’s how I give you the antibiotics that you need.”

     Peter thought that he was hallucinating, or that he was already dead and damned to being eternally plagued by Neal Caffrey. The illusion before him, who actually seemed solidly real, held out a bottle of water to Peter. The rebellious agent batted it out of the conman’s hand with a vengeance so that it bounced off the wall in the room and landed once again at the young man’s feet. With a sardonic shake of his head, Caffrey picked it up, cracked it open, and drank a third of its contents.

     “See, not drugged or poisoned,” was all that he said. He returned with another that he had plucked from the small refrigerator off to the side. A staring match ensued, until it was Peter who blinked first and opened this second bottle of water that felt so good going down his parched throat. Now it was time to get down to business.

     “So, why am I here, Caffrey? What’s your agenda—torture an FBI agent to get your jollies, or string out the game trying for a ransom? You know the Agency doesn’t negotiate with kidnappers nor pay ransoms, so you’re out of luck on that score.”

     Caffrey didn’t rise to the bait. He just asked if Peter wanted pain medicine. “I’ve got a few Vicodins if you need them, Agent Burke. Don’t play the stouthearted hero. You don’t need to try and impress me with your bravery or endurance.”

     “I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction,” Peter spat. “Now what’s this game that you’re playing?” Peter fairly shouted!

     Caffrey stared down at the prone man. “Well, you claim to have me all figured out, so you certainly don’t need me to tell you.”

     Caffrey then refused to engage in any more conversation. He simply turned a deaf ear, positioned himself at the crude table in the room, and began studying the contents of a manila folder. That is where he remained until Peter suffered the extreme humiliation of telling the fugitive that he needed to visit a bathroom. Accommodatingly, Caffrey slung Peter’s arm across his shoulder and helped the crippled man hop rather than hobble to a small alcove in the cabin. There was no window in the niche with the facilities, so Caffrey allowed Peter to close the door while he took care of business. This whole process really sapped most of Peter’s strength, and he gratefully sank back onto the bed after they made their slow return. Caffrey then busied himself fixing a simple dinner for the two of them. He still refused to speak when Peter plied him with questions that became more and more demanding.

     “Just how long are you going to keep me a prisoner? You have to know that the whole weight of the FBI will be breathing down your neck when they discover that I am missing. It will not end well for you, so cut your loses and run. If you have the slightest bit of conscience left in your soul, leave word of my whereabouts at the FBI when you are safely away.”

     Perhaps Caffrey had simply had his fill of all the persistent badgering, and finally favored Peter with a response.

     “It will end when certain things are in place and not before, Agent Burke. So stop all of your ranting, raving, and threats. In the long run, it will not gain you anything. I’m going to blame all your bitching on the pain that you probably have in your leg. Do us both a favor and take a Vicodin so that the two of us can get a good night’s sleep. I sincerely promise you that I won’t strangle you during the night. It has been too much effort keeping you alive since our unexpected little encounter for me to give in to temptation.”

     Caffrey then placed a bottle of water and a small pill bottle beside Peter. After injecting a syringe-full of antibiotics into Peter’s intravenous access, the young man retreated to a cushioned Adirondack chair in the small room and closed his eyes. Peter’s service pistol and a satellite phone remained nestled in his lap.

     Peter perversely ignored the narcotic, so sleep was a long way off. He spent the lengthy hours of the night studying the man who was once his prey, but was now his captor. Four years ago, the FBI agent had finally managed to corner the elusive conman by using his estranged girlfriend as bait to lure him into the net. The capture wasn’t the result of some brilliant strategy worthy of their contest of one-upmanship. It was an act of desperation on Peter’s part. Even though the game had been punctuated with youthful exuberance on Caffrey’s part in the form of humorous birthday cards and little presents of pizza and cookies to the surveillance van, Peter had to take down this clever and crafty young punk, just a few years out of his teens, who was making fools of the entire Bureau.

     The trial was a lengthy one, and the list of felonies was impressively long. The federal authorities had brought twenty-five counts of theft, fraud, counterfeiting, embezzlement, investment schemes, money laundering, racketeering, and smuggling to the table. Caffrey was found guilty of only half of those charges, but it was enough to gain him a hefty 15-year sentence in a maximum-security federal prison, with the vindictive district attorney vowing to block any petition for early parole.

     At the time, Peter thought this whole situation was a sad example of a promising young life cut off at the knees. What a waste of talent and intelligence. The impulsive kid would be nearing forty years old when he got out of prison, having spent his youth surrounded by hardened criminals serving time for assault, rape, murder, and a generally depraved indifference to the basic rules of society. “Neal,” as Peter mentally referred to him back then, was far from a hardened case. He was always non-violent, using charm and hubris to get what he wanted. That wasn’t difficult to manage with his youthful good looks and polite manners. His marks usually loved him, even after the fact.

     Unfortunately, incarceration had drastically changed the gentle young man, turning him into a wily and lethal entity. Somehow, he had managed to simply walk out of that prison under everybody’s noses after just two years of captivity, and he then embarked on a new career as far from his old vocation as one could possibly get. The FBI, and Peter specifically, were brought in on the manhunt.

     It was an exercise in futility. Caffrey had disappeared without a trace. Eventually, reports from Interpol and Europol pegged him as spending a lot of time in Europe and the United Arab Emirates. Dubai was a favorite stomping ground where he rubbed shoulders with sheiks and Arab businessmen made wealthy by oil interests. There was speculation that he was now an arms merchant; other chatter claimed that he was a mercenary, a soldier of fortune whose talents went to the highest bidder. What was fact, however, was that a lot of his business associates simply disappeared from the scene. They were forever gone, never to be heard from again, nor their bodies ever found. Peter now had this previously youthful and appealing dynamo designated as a deadly assassin in his mind. His murderous rampage had to be stopped, but Peter had been stymied because most of the lethal business took place overseas, far beyond the FBI’s jurisdiction.

     So, what game was Caffrey playing this time, and how was Peter’s unexpected appearance going to alter the drama? The older man stared hard at Neal, loose-limbed and relaxed in sleep. Initially, at that warehouse, Peter had perceived him as predatory and brutal. Now, as he studied the same face softened and unguarded, he wasn’t so sure. Yeah, the callowness of youth was gone; there were minute lines at the corners of his eyes, and a derisive set to his mouth when he was awake. However, he certainly didn’t look like a malicious serial killer. But then what did a personality who embodied all of those evil attributes look like exactly? Just as he had been years ago, Neal remained an enigma, and these thoughts kept Peter from getting more than a few hours of troubled rest.


	2. Chapter 2

     Like Peter Burke, Neal slept fitfully. Deep, restful slumber always eluded him because, even on the quietest of evenings, nightmares were regular visitors to his dreams. It seemed that he could never find true peace, and it made him feel old beyond his years. As a young man, while on his wilding spree into the world of conning and conniving, Neal had experienced no trouble sleeping. Most likely that was because he had the mindset of an impudent teenager with an unshakable belief in his own invincibility. He was having the time of his life, and he reasoned that nothing could ever touch him. He was wrong, and the harsh punishment doled out by the criminal justice system came as a severe shock.

     The penalty of fifteen years seemed like a lifetime to a twenty-something kid, and he gallantly played the martyr by telling Kate not to waste the best years of her life waiting for his return. She took him at his word, without even a ghost of an argument, and, perhaps for the first time, reality handed Neal his pride on a platter. He had been a fool to think that they were star-crossed lovers, their story etched in the annals of eternal bliss. Maybe, it was the first step for Neal in the growing up process.

     His mind was in a fog as the verdicts were read, one count at a time, and the punishments imposed. He suspected that he must have looked shell-shocked because Peter Burke, the very person responsible for his fate, delayed Neal’s transport to prison by corralling the young man in an anteroom at the courthouse.

     “Just keep your head down, don’t make waves, and do your time,” he advised the young felon. “When you get out, you can turn your life around and be a productive member of society.”

     Yeah, that was easy for him to say, thought Neal. I’ll be middle-aged just like “Burke the Jerk” before I see the light of day again. Nevertheless, he put on his game face, suffered the indignity of the initial prison processing, and the embarrassing strip-search at Sing-Sing. He then accepted the horrendous orange jumpsuit and scratchy sheets with their complement of a thin blanket and pillow. He remained with manacles on his wrists and ankles until he was escorted to a cell that he would be sharing with another inmate.

     He cautiously made the acquaintance of his bunkmate, an older man in his sixties who was serving life without parole for two murders that he had committed years before. Apparently, if the prison grapevine was accurate, the inmate had caught his wife in bed with another man and, in a jealous rage, had sliced and diced both of them while they lay entwined in each other’s arms. Now, more than thirty years later, he was the epitome of meekness, but Neal made sure to stay on his good side.

     With a grifter’s innate sense, Neal got the lay of the land in this little walled fiefdom. He was a quick study, learning the identities of the head honchos in all the little ethnic splinter groups that thrived throughout the prison. He managed to give them the respect that they thought was their due, and didn’t cross any lines into their territory. He was polite and deferential to the guards, never causing them any trouble. Just as Agent Burke advised, he kept his head down and he was left alone for almost two years.

     Time, most assuredly, did not pass quickly. Each day seemed to contain more than twenty-four hours, and the tedium and boredom were excruciating. At night, as he lay on his bunk, Neal kept his mind active by dreaming up possible ways to escape. However, that was all a pipedream—never destined to happen. The prison was a fortress, and it would take a miracle to get away with your skin still intact. So, in frustration, the depressed young prisoner etched a parade of seemingly never-ending little tic marks on the wall beside his bunk.

     Then, one day, without warning, Neal was transferred into another cell. His new bunkmate was huge, with a mocking, cruel smirk that made the hairs on the back of Neal’s neck prickle. He was an unfamiliar face, a new addition delivered by the prison bus from Rickers Island in Manhattan. The tattooed, tough guy looked the young con man up and down with a dispassionate air as if he was nothing more than a side of beef hanging in a butcher shop. Neal knew this didn’t bode well for his continued good health, and he was right. That very first night, after the overhead lights were extinguished, the new convict proceeded to reach up and haul Neal from his bunk by the thin undershirt that he wore. With a menacing thrust of his bulked up body, he then pushed the smaller man up against the concrete wall and leered into Neal’s face.

     “I need to give you a message, pretty boy,” he hissed.

     The young con man was terrified, but that did not stop him from instinctively bringing a knee up into the giant’s groin and slipping from his startled grasp.

     With a bravado he didn’t really feel, Neal confronted the seething man. “If you think that you can fuck me, well _fuck you_ , because the only way that’s going to happen is if you kill me first!”

   “So, the baby tiger cub has teeth,” the large man taunted softly. “Let’s see what you’re made of little boy!”

     It didn’t take but a few minutes before he had a thick arm around Neal’s neck, applying more and more pressure until shooting flashes of light danced before the young man’s eyes. He couldn’t draw a breath, as the blood flow delivering needed oxygen to his brain and lungs was cut off. Neal’s last thought was that it wasn’t taking him long to die.

~~~~~~~~~~

     But Neal did not die that night. He awoke, mentally confused, in what he recognized as the prison infirmary. He had once spent a night here for the stomach flu, so it was familiar territory. Of course, one wrist and one ankle were handcuffed to the bed frame, but there were no IV lines or wires connected to his body. At least that was a positive note, but then Neal began to remember, and his heart stuttered in his chest. He took a quick inventory of his body. If he had been raped, wouldn’t he be aware of pain from brutally stretched and torn tissue? Try as he might, he couldn’t discern any discomfort anywhere. So, why was he here? What had been done to him while he was unconscious?

     Seeing that his patient was now awake, the prison physician made his way over to Neal’s bed. Apparently, the con man was the ward’s only occupant right now, so the doctor took a few minutes to apprise Neal of his condition.

     “You were transferred in from your cell after ‘lights out’ last night, Mr. Caffrey. You were unconscious at that time, but your cellmate stated that he witnessed you having a seizure. He was responsible for alerting the guards of the situation.”

     “That’s not what I remember,” Neal stated emphatically.

     The doctor looked at Neal for a minute, and then explained that it was actually normal not to remember a seizure, and to be confused after awakening from one.

     “So,” Neal asked hesitantly, “were there any signs of physical trauma when I was brought in?”

     “None at all,” the physician reassured him. “Your fellow cellmate said he made sure that you didn’t hurt yourself while you were flailing. You really should thank him for his quick thinking when you are returned to your quarters. Things could have been a lot worse. We’re going to run a few tests in the coming days, but I will clear you medically so that you can be sent back to the unit later this afternoon.”

     Having done his duty, the physician moved away to sit at his desk in the small windowed cubicle that faced out onto the ward. He picked up the phone and made a brief call. Within minutes, another visitor strolled into the infirmary. Words were exchanged, and then the doctor stepped out into the hall, leaving Neal alone with the unknown man. The stranger pulled a stool over beside Neal’s bed and looked down at him. Neal knew that utilizing the higher stool in lieu of a chair was simply a ploy enabling the visitor to loom over him—a usually effective means of projecting power and control.

     Like any good con man worth his salt, Neal instinctively catalogued everything about his visitor. He was of medium height and build, and probably in his mid-forties. He wore a conservative, pin-stripped suit with an unpretentious tie, and polished wingtip shoes. His hair was cut in a short, conventional style, and he wore no jewelry except for a watch of moderate quality. Neal assumed that he had a desk job of some kind; he certainly didn’t look the type for physical labor. The stranger piqued Neal’s interest, and remnants of an old Mother Goose children’s rhyme popped into his head ……… _“Was he a butcher, a baker, or a candlestick maker?”_

     The staring match ended when Neal finally asked, “Who are you?”

     “Ah,” the stranger responded. “Not one to mince words, are you. That is a good attribute up to a point. _My_ name is not important at this juncture. The important thing is that Dietrich got you here so that you are now a captive audience for this private little discussion.”

     “ _Dietrich_ ,” Neal parroted. “Is that the name of the truck that ran me over while trying to rape me?”

     The man smiled. “There was no rape, Neal, nor was there any seizure. Dietrich was merely following orders to find a way to get you here that was plausible, and would not raise any suspicion among the inmates. Discretion is paramount to the conversation that we are going to have.”

     Now Neal was intrigued. However, he resented being manipulated, so he remained stubbornly mute. The visitor simply ignored the act of defiance and began to fill in the blanks.

     “Neal, you are a very unique man, and have led a life filled with extraordinary experiences. You were quite the globetrotter during your little adventurous run on the wrong side of the law. Networking seemed to be your forte, and you excelled at making valuable contacts around the world. We are very interested in some of those contacts.”

   Neal gave a snort. “You can stop right there. I’m not going to narc on anyone from my past, so you are wasting your breath.”

     The visitor plastered a condescending little smile on his lips. “Mundane thefts of artwork and jewels, forged bonds, and investments scams are of little interest to us. Likewise, drug running and human trafficking. We leave those evils to the agencies designated by acronyms. What we are interested in is far more lethal and dangerous. Everyday we fight the good fight against people smuggling in illegal armaments, bio-weapons, and fissionable nuclear material aimed at the destruction of our country.”

     Neal stared for a minute before responding. “You’re talking about terrorists, but I have never dealt with anyone like that—ever!”

     “You may be surprised, my young friend. Money makes for some strange bedfellows. Funding has to come from somewhere, and although you think that you do not know any terrorists personally, some of those individuals that you associated with in the past do. You could be quite helpful in ferreting out who those persons are, as well as their agenda.”

     Neal held up his wrist and jiggled the manacle. “That may be a little difficult. As you pointed out earlier, I am a ‘ _captive_ ’ audience right now, so I don’t see how I can be of much use to you.”

     “Oh, that little impediment can be dealt with quite easily. In a few days, you will be sent to a local hospital to have an MRI of your brain to rule out the possibility of a tumor that may have caused the ‘ _seizure_.’ If you agree to work with us, you may never get to have that test. We’ll whisk you away to an undisclosed location to begin your training.

     When we feel that you are ready, we will unleash you back into your world of international crime. You will re-kindle old friendships and offer your services as an intermediary—a broker of sorts for all things illegal. If anything reeks of a terrorist threat to this country, you will get us that information, and we will take it from there. We will protect you as much as we can so that your cover isn’t blown. I cannot say definitively that you will never be in danger, but then your past exploits always placed you in peril, and you managed to tolerate that quite easily. Actually, I think that you thrived on it, Neal, so this assignment should be right in your wheelhouse.”

     Neal was thoughtful. “Unfortunately, what you have completely failed to mention is the fact that I will be considered a convicted criminal and escaped felon, and law enforcement agencies worldwide will be trying to hunt me down.”

     “That was your life before, Neal. Everyone wanted the prestige of capturing the infamous Neal Caffrey. It didn’t seem to bother you then; in fact, I suspect that it fueled your ego.”

     Neal was quiet, so the visitor applied a bit more pressure. “It’s a very good bargain, my young friend. Do you really want to spend almost another decade and a half here, vegetating, and letting your brilliant mind turn to mush? You could be making a difference, Neal. Would it be so hard to work for the good guys for once—to be a patriot for your country?”

     In the end, Neal impulsively made a deal with the devil that would change his life forever. He was returned to his cell that evening. Dietrich was already there and graced Neal with an evil leer. He reached out with a meaty hand and stroked Neal’s cheek.

     “Did you miss me, pretty boy?”

     Neal slapped his hand away and levered himself onto the top bunk. Dietrich’s laugh mocked him. Thus began the progression of fitful nights of disturbing dreams, and sleeping with one eye open.

~~~~~~~~~~

     As promised, plans were put into play the next day to transport Neal to a local hospital for tests. He was escorted, heavily manacled, to the back of the prison van. Accompanying him in the back of that vehicle was the anonymous visitor. Once they were underway, he unlocked Neal’s restraints, handed him a guard’s uniform and a wallet containing a false ID.

     “When we reach the parking lot of the hospital,” he explained, “there will be a black Cadillac Escalade idling at the curb. You will nonchalantly exit this van and climb into the passenger seat of that Escalade. The driver will take you where you need to be. Do not even entertain the idea of making a run for it. We own you body and soul now, and can make your life miserable, as well as anyone else’s who means anything to you. Kate Moreau is now happily living the dream in Chicago with her new boyfriend. It would turn her world upside down if certain instances of aiding and abetting a known criminal during his felonious exploits came to light.”

     Neal’s eyes narrowed and he felt the unfamiliar pangs of rage begin to build. His captor simply ignored the glare that the con man directed his way. He had the upper hand and he knew it.

     “You won’t be seeing me ever again, Neal. You will have other designated handlers. We have high hopes that you will be very successful. Don’t let us down.”

~~~~~~~~~~

     Everything went according to plan, and Neal settled in to learn the spy trade. He memorized long lists of names, and pages of photographs of suspected death merchants. He learned every type of weapon from the ground up. Sometimes arms were dismantled for shipping, so he had to be familiar with each and every part. He was educated in the art of bomb making so that he could recognize a myriad of complex timers and detonators. He could now identify uranium and plutonium, and hoped that he would never come in contact with them. Likewise, those were his sentiments regarding all the nasty little bugs that were aptly termed biological weapons of mass destruction. In essence, a very gentle, non-violent young man learned all the ways that some very violent people sought to destroy other innocent human beings.

     After several months, the furor surrounding his escape had begun to die down, and his handlers deemed him ready to venture into a clandestine world of espionage. They provided him with an expensive wardrobe, plenty of money, some pretty cool tools, and a lot of dire warnings about what would happen if he messed up. It wasn’t long before he was back on the scene and rubbing elbows with the movers and shakers who dealt in the shadows.

     Eventually, Neal became the trusted go-to guy if you wanted to smuggle illicit things. Even though he always surrendered his tainted monetary payoffs to his handlers, they turned a blind eye to items that were not within their purview. Thus, the con man was still able to tuck away a hefty little nest egg in the Caymans when the occasional transfer of an ancient artifact, a chamois bag of diamonds, or a rolled up canvas masterpiece took a detour into his own coffers.

     However, over time, Neal proved his worth to the government by unearthing the whereabouts of some of those people on those infamous lists. When these men simply disappeared, a whispered word was put out into the ether that they had crossed Caffrey during a transaction. Neal surmised that these suspected terrorists were not really dead, but were tucked away in a secure location for some very intense and extended interrogation. However, Neal’s sinister reputation had been born and continued to grow. It became a well-known fact that you didn’t mess with Caffrey and expect to live a long life.

     Of course, to maintain the façade, arrests were not always made. Sometimes the agents let shipments reach their destinations to keep Neal’s street credibility intact. They would then follow the goods to the recipients—the sleeper cells within the country’s borders. It was a complicated web that spies needed to weave.

     Neal was very good at what he did, but that didn’t mean that he slept well at night. He felt like he was always balancing on a high wire, forever afraid to look down because he might fall. Things didn’t always go as planned no matter how prepared you were. His forte was implementing on the fly when the unexpected happened. That attribute had saved his life many times, and it had saved his and Peter Burke’s life in Yonkers. Thankfully, he had backup in the shadows that night at the warehouse when he was supposed to meet a Syrian national to discuss a shipment of drones. Of course, the Syrian had brought his own back up, and things had gotten ugly very fast when Burke gummed up the works. Now Neal was forced to hole up in a safe house with the FBI agent until further word from his handlers. Could it get anymore messed up than that? Thanks for nothing, Agent Burke!


	3. Chapter 3

     A soft buzz from the sat phone in his lap caused Neal to come instantly awake. Peter watched as the con man put the phone to his ear and reeled off a series of numbers and letters in rapid, staccato fashion. After he listened for a heartbeat, he simply ended the call without another word. Neal then looked over at Peter.

     “Coffee or bathroom?” he inquired.

     Peter didn’t offer him the courtesy of an answer; he just hooked a thumb towards the tucked away facilities.

   Once again, Neal drew Peter’s arm across his shoulder and they began the slow crawl towards the bathroom niche. When Peter eventually re-opened the door, he could smell the faint aroma of coffee. After the agent was again situated on the bed, Neal delivered a steaming mug of the brew.

     “Unfortunately, it’s instant. Guess we’ll just have to rough it, Agent Burke,” he said with a sardonic smile.

     Then he returned to the Adirondack chair and stretched out his long legs. Peter intently studied him as the con man sipped his own coffee.

     “You know, Caffrey,” he began thoughtfully, “I’ve always wondered about guys like you. Are you just hardwired the way that you are, or did some cataclysmic event put you on this path? But maybe that’s too easy an answer. Maybe it was just an insidious progression of circumstances along the way that molded you into what you have become. Perhaps you’d like to blame it on a deprived, disenchanted childhood. Maybe you were bullied as a tyke. Come on, Sport, tell me what makes you tick?”

     “Well, golly, Agent Burke, I’d much rather listen to your speculations,” Neal said mockingly. “I’m sure that you most certainly have an opinion, and are chomping at the bit to expound on the subject of ‘nature versus nurture.’”

     Peter chose to ignore the sarcasm. “No, Neal, I have never been able to figure you out. There wasn’t enough information available since you didn’t seem to exist before your eighteenth birthday. What I do know is that you are brilliant, talented and a daredevil. Initially, I think you did the things that you did because you craved attention to validate your worth. Back then, I would have sworn that you didn’t have a mean bone in your body. You never physically hurt anyone, and you seemed to have some sort of ethical code, even though your principles were skewed. Now, —well, I’m not sure what you’re getting out of your loathsome existence other than the obvious pleasure of killing people.”

     When Neal just stared without responding, Peter continued. “What has me perplexed is what you have in mind for me. Why haven’t you killed me? I am always going to be a thorn in your side as long as I’m breathing. I’ll always be dogging your every step, and I won’t stop until I take you down—again. I did it once, and I can do it again. It’s just a matter of time until you get locked up and they throw away the key.”

     “Speaking of time,” Neal chose to ignore the whole discussion as he looked at his watch, “your next dose of antibiotic is due.”

     When Neal withdrew the syringe after injecting the liquid into the access port in Peter’s forearm, it was just a brief interval before jagged shadows of black appeared at the periphery of Peter’s vision. They grew in intensity, until eventually there was but a narrow circle of light that suddenly winked out as the federal agent surrendered to oblivion. The last thing that he saw was Neal’s inscrutable face.

~~~~~~~~~~

     Elizabeth Burke had been beside herself with worry for the last sixteen hours. When Peter had not returned from acting on a hunch regarding Neal Caffrey, fear began to clutch at her heart. The morning hours still brought no word from her husband. All her attempts to call him went to voicemail. Finally, she phoned the White Collar office and was told that Peter had not shown up there, nor contacted them. When she shared Peter’s off-book fishing expedition with his team, they took her panic seriously and acted accordingly. There was now a full-out manhunt in progress with every agent diligently working to find the boss that they all respected and admired. It had become very personal for each of them.

     Elizabeth paced the small townhome, sometimes tripping over Satchmo who had picked up on her distress and was continually underfoot. El just couldn’t make herself sit down to comfort his anxious whining; she simply had to keep moving. Eventually, her manic kinetic energy was interrupted by a phone call from the Bureau. She was asked by an officious, anonymous voice to come to One Federal Plaza as soon as possible. When she tried to ask a question, she found that the connection had ended. Hastily, she called a cab, since Peter had taken their only car the night before. The nervous Lab whimpered, but she absently shushed him as she peered outside awaiting her ride.

     Once at her destination, she barreled through the doors on the twenty-first floor of the FBI building. She couldn’t locate either Clinton Jones or Diana Berrigan at their desks in the bullpen, so she quickly ran up the steps to Reese Hughes’ office. Her husband’s superior seemed surprised to see her.

     “Elizabeth, we’re doing everything that we can to find Peter. You just have to have faith in us that we can do our jobs and bring him home to you.” The ASAC tried to be reassuring because he didn’t want a hysterical female on his hands right now.

     Confusion showed on El’s face. “But Reese, when I got that call a little while ago, I assumed that there was some news. That’s why I am here—you told me to come. Well, maybe not you personally, but somebody did!”

     Now the seasoned veteran was just as befuddled as the woman before him.

     “As far as I know, Elizabeth, there have been no leads or new developments. Since Peter did not tell you where he was going last night, we don’t even know where to start looking. We are trying to get a bead on Caffrey, since Peter was apparently onto something regarding the escaped criminal, and working that angle. That’s all we have to go on right now. I really don’t know why someone asked you to come here, but I will look into it.”

     “Caffrey’s a killer, isn’t he Reese?” El was valiantly trying to hold it together.

     “Elizabeth, please, just try to believe that we will find Peter safe and unharmed,” Hughes responded as he walked out of his office to buttonhole a probie whom he instructed to take Mrs. Burke home.

     Elizabeth managed to retain a stoic calm beside a young FBI agent at least ten years her junior. She refused to cry in front of a stranger. Her escort gallantly opened the door of the car for her when they arrived at the townhouse in Brooklyn, and remained by her side all the way to the home’s front door. As she inserted the key in the lock, she could hear the frenetic tap-dance of Satchmo’s toenails on the hardwood. The dog greeted her with an exuberance that belied the depressed demeanor that he had exhibited earlier. Seeking to quell his happy welcome, she led him into the living room where she was suddenly confronted by an unexpected sight. Her startled shriek brought the junior agent quickly to her side.

     Peter lay stretched out on the couch with a pillow under his head. He was wearing the same clothes as the day before, although the right leg of his trousers had been split to accommodate a thick, white cast that stretched from his knee to his ankle. He didn’t stir when Elizabeth screamed, and the FBI agent quickly knelt down to feel for a pulse in his neck. It was definitely there, bounding and strong. An ambulance was hastily summoned, and now Elizabeth again found herself beside the junior agent as they followed the emergency vehicle to the hospital. Hughes, Jones, and Berrigan eventually joined her as she waited tensely for word of Peter’s condition in the ER holding area.

     Finally, a senior resident came out to inquire if the family of Peter Burke was present. He was confronted with four anxious faces. After the relationships were all sorted out, the physician gladly shared his findings. He explained that Peter was now awake but a bit groggy. His blood work showed the remnants of Fentanyl, a potent opioid in his system, as well as evidence of Ceftriaxone, a broad-spectrum antibiotic. An x-ray revealed that he had suffered a fracture of his right tibia. The bone had been expertly realigned and the limb professionally immobilized in a cast. Early stages of healing could already be seen. The doctor wanted to keep Peter overnight for observation, but, most likely, he could be discharged in the morning, although he would need to schedule follow-up appointments with an orthopedist for the fracture.

     When everyone was eventually allowed to enter Peter’s tiny cubicle, he told them of his harrowing experience that spanned the lost hours. Hughes gave a nod of his head in Jones and Berrigan’s direction. They hastily headed out of the room with a promise of “We’re on it!” Then Hughes gave Peter a quelling look.

     “We have agents who make up a team at White Collar, Peter. A team works together, in tandem. That is how we get results and how we protect one another. Do I even have to say how unprofessional, stupid, and _dangerous_ your actions were yesterday?!”

     Peter looked sheepish. “No Reese. I get the message loud and clear.”

     Hughes was only slightly mollified. “Well, okay then. Maybe next time you will think of your wife before you go rogue. She is too young to be a grieving widow, and I certainly do not want to have to look at your photo mounted on our memorial wall. I am going to recommend that you take a leave of absence of at least six weeks. Let your bones heal, Peter, and your mind rest—at least as far as Neal Caffrey is concerned. We will deal with him. He can’t evade us forever, and eventually he will get what’s coming to him in spades.”

     The disgruntled, old agent then grasped Elizabeth’s hand, solemnly intoning, “Make sure that your impetuous, hardheaded husband does what he is told. I’m making you an honorary agent, and that is your assignment.”

     After Hughes made his exit, Elizabeth let the tears fall as she hugged her beloved husband.

     “I was so scared, Peter. He could have killed you,” she moaned.

     “Yeah,” Peter agreed, “he could have. That’s what has me puzzled. Why didn’t he take advantage of the opportunity?”

~~~~~~~~~~

     Before Peter’s release the next day, Clinton and Diana both paid him a visit, and in turn, gave him the rundown of their progress, or lack of it.

     “Peter, we and the forensics team have been all over that warehouse in Yonkers. We found absolutely nothing. There were no dead bodies and not even a drop of blood. We couldn’t locate any shell casings even with the help of a metal detector. We did find occasional bullet holes, but there was no way to determine when they were made. They could have been from previous drug deals gone bad, or macho jocks using the place for target practice. It was a complete dead end. As for the cabin where you were taken afterwards, we don’t even have a clue where to look for that.

     We also went over your home with a fine toothcomb. Caffrey’s prints were nowhere to be found. We did find your suit jacket hung over a kitchen chair. Your wallet, badge, credentials, car keys, phone, and handcuffs are all accounted for. Your service weapon was in your shoulder harness and hung on another chair. Your gun was never fired and the only fingerprints on it were yours.

     We used the remote button on your key fob to locate your car. It was parked on your street, but a ways down the block. Your prints and Elizabeth’s were the only ones we could identify. The GPS showed that it was driven from your home to Yonkers, and then back again the next day. Street cams were no help because we couldn’t pinpoint it on the footage.

     We tried to ascertain Caffrey’s current whereabouts, but if he is here in New York, the street isn’t giving him up. As always, he is just a ghost. We’ll keep working this as long as Hughes lets us, Peter, we promise.”

     Peter thanked his best agents for their diligence. When Elizabeth went out to bring the car around to the discharge entrance of the hospital, he asked a favor of them.

     “While I’m restricted to my home convalescing, I’d appreciate it if you could bring me my office laptop.”

     Jones and Diana shared a look. “Do you mean the one that has access to all the FBI databases that you aren’t supposed to be looking through for the next six weeks?”

     “Yeah,” Peter smiled awkwardly, “that’s the one.”

     “You got it, Boss,” Diana quickly answered. Jones just grinned.

~~~~~~~~~~

     Peter knew that there was a lot more to this saga. Caffrey was definitely working with a team of his own. A sanitized crime scene meant that a very thorough clean-up crew had been hard at work mopping up after him. And although the con man possessed a lot of esoteric talents, Peter doubted that battlefield trauma aid was in his bag of tricks. Somehow, expert medical care by a competent person had been rendered while Peter had been unconscious, more than likely in that quiet little cottage that nobody could pinpoint. This was becoming “curiouser and curiouser,” to paraphrase Alice in Wonderland.

     When the purloined laptop was delivered, Peter began to delve into the Caffrey odyssey that spanned the two years since he had escaped prison. With a determined effort, he catalogued each and every smuggling crime that authorities worldwide suspected the con man of masterminding. Most occurred throughout Europe and the Middle East.

   Eventually, Peter began to see a pattern emerge, as he made two columns on a spreadsheet. On the left, under the heading of arms trafficking, he had listed all the dates and places where suspected weapons deals had taken place around the globe. These were the transactions that authorities had managed to interrupt, thereby preventing dangerous armaments from being transported to their ultimate destinations. The deals were said to be Caffrey’s work, and it wasn’t unusual for people connected to them to suddenly drop off the face of the earth. Rumor had it that Caffrey was the one who made them disappear—permanently, because they had botched the operation.

     On the right side of the ledger, Peter had catalogued all the occurrences of spectacular, daring thefts from museums and private collectors that occurred around the same time. Peter had a “Eureka” moment when he saw the correlation.

     With dedicated precision, he began to draw little red arrows between an intercepted shipment of Uzis in Marseilles, and an audacious theft of a Renoir from the Louvre. Little blue arrows connected a planeload of missile parts confiscated in Barcelona with a theft of a Goya from the Prado in Madrid. Green depicted a connection between explosives discovered aboard a Tunisian freighter on the Mediterranean, and the theft of ancient Roman mosaic tiles from the city’s Bardo Museum.

     Peter began to shake his head and laugh out loud. This was just so “Caffrey,”—mercurial and quixotic. Even though the former con man now had a stellar reputation as the premier broker for the wares of nefarious arms merchants, he just couldn’t resist temptation. If he was in the neighborhood, why not treat himself to a few little trinkets along the way, just to keep his hand in for old time’s sake. Apparently, Neal was very good at multitasking.

     Peter’s research began to consume him and filled the hours of his days at home. The collated list continued to grow. One evening Reese Hughes called to say that he was stopping by for a visit. When he arrived that evening, Peter’s laptop was nowhere in sight.

     “Peter,” the old agent began wearily, “I got a call today from the higher ups in the Bureau. Apparently, they got wind that you have been doing extensive research into the Caffrey files again.”

     Peter managed to look guilty for all of a minute, but then he began to tell Hughes about the developments that he had unearthed.

     “That’s very interesting,” Hughes deadpanned, “but you need to let it go, Peter. The directive to stand down came directly from the Attorney General, and I am not referring to New York’s Attorney General. The one who issued this mandate is the Attorney General of the United States.”

     Peter gaped at his boss. “Reese,” Peter finally responded, “that means that somebody high up the food chain, somebody very powerful, is giving Caffrey cover. Do you think that it may be someone in Homeland Security? That would make sense because of the nature of the product that is being peddled. Do you think Caffrey is working as their inside man? If he is, then I am not buying into that whole assassin scenario. That could all be disinformation disseminated to enhance his image. Neal was never violent in the past, and it’s hard to believe that he may have changed that drastically in two years.”

     “Something certainly isn’t adding up,” Hughes agreed. “I have been in this business for a long time, and have forged bonds with other agencies along the way. I have a contact at NSA, and I tried pumping him for information. I got absolutely nowhere. Apparently, everything is on a ‘ _need to know_ ’ basis, and unfortunately, they are not in a mood to share because we do not ‘ _need to know_.’ So, just leave it alone, Peter. There are plenty of White Collar crimes that are in our bailiwick that need to be solved. Just give up on your obsession with Neal Caffrey.”

     “I just wish that I could,” Peter thought to himself after Hughes left.    


	4. Chapter 4

   Peter was entering the fifth week of his forced exile from White Collar. He had put his laptop to rest now that he knew that “Big Brother” was watching his every keystroke. He busied himself catching up on all “ _The New York Times_ ” crossword puzzles that he had neglected while involved in his manic investigation into Neal’s activities. El had returned to work at her catering business once Peter was placed in a walking cast. Now he could maneuver his way around the house, albeit slowly and awkwardly. Stairs were definitely a challenge, but so far, he had managed to accomplish the routine treks to the second-floor bathroom without a mishap.

     Satchmo was his constant companion, although most of the time the yellow Lab lazed away the day curled up in his dog bed. However, right now the usually quiet dog was agitated and excited. His tail was wagging as he gazed longingly through the glass panes of the back door and whined.

     “Is that squirrel back again and taunting you?” Peter asked the animal. “You do realize that you’re never going to catch him. As soon as he sees you come out, he’s going to hightail it up the oak tree. Then he’s going to keep mocking you by staying just out of your reach.”

     Satchmo paid no attention to Peter’s words of wisdom and continued to dance around until Peter opened the door and he bolted outside. Peter knew the game of tag would take awhile, so now that he was on his feet, he decided he would visit the bathroom. You only rented coffee for a brief time before the lease was up and you had to let it vacate the premises.

     Peter was very careful to watch each step when he later descended. He kept his attention focused on the stair treads and didn’t dare look up until he reached the landing. Thus, it came as a sudden shock to be confronted by Neal Caffrey sitting on his couch petting an extremely happy and adoring Satchmo. The con man was dressed in jeans and a tan t-shirt that advertised a pizza parlor. A Yankees baseball cap facing backwards completed the ensemble.

     “Hi, Agent Burke,” he said with a big, toothy smile. His blue eyes were sparkling with barely concealed merriment.

     Instinctively, Peter glanced toward the kitchen chair where his holstered gun hung.

     “Looking for this?” Caffrey asked as he displayed the service revolver that now dangled from his index finger.

     “You’re not going to shoot me, Neal, so you can stop twirling that around.” Peter said with bravado.

     “Probably not,” Neal agreed. “But I think that I better hold onto it so that you don’t try to shoot me.”

     Peter snorted derisively and clomped over to the couch. “Move over, criminal. I’m an invalid who needs to sit down!”

     Neal’s laugh was musical, but he complied, sliding over to give Peter enough room to settle in.

     “So, to what do I owe the honor of your presence, Caffrey? Why are you here stalking me and corrupting my dog? Usually, he’s a very good judge of character, but he must be slipping.”

     “I happened to be in town and wanted to see how you are,” Neal started his explanation. “I felt bad that you got hurt because of me.”

     Neal hesitated for a minute before continuing. “You know, there is an old Chinese proverb that says if you save a life then you are forever responsible for that life. So, I’m always going to worry about you. I guess we’ll have an eternal connection, Agent Burke. Maybe now we can be less formal and I can call you Peter. So, _Peter_ , when do you go back to work?”

     “Unbelievable,” Peter huffed, “you are just friggin’ unbelievable! This nonsense is coming from the guy who held me at gunpoint against my will, slugged me in the jaw, and followed that up by rendering me unconscious with drugs. I do not want to be your friend, Caffrey. I want to put you in handcuffs while I escort you back to prison where you belong.”

     Neal let out a long sigh. “I get it, Agent Burke, I really do. So, I guess I’ll be on my way then.”

     The uninvited visitor stood up and moved towards the back door. He stopped briefly on his way to replace Peter’s gun back in its holster in the kitchen. His hand was on the doorknob when Peter’s soft words made him freeze for a second.

     “What have you gotten yourself into Neal?”

     The young man gave Peter a searching look. “The usual stuff,” he finally answered flippantly.

     “Yeah, sure,” Peter intoned sarcastically. “You are just a run-of-the-mill thief, forger, scammer, and con man.”

     Neal smiled. “Actually, _Peter_ , I am the quintessential thief, forger, scammer, and con man.”

     “Bragging isn’t an attractive quality, Neal,” Peter answered cynically.

     “It isn’t bragging if it’s true.” The wanted fugitive then displayed another dazzling smile before waltzing out the door.

~~~~~~~~~~

     Peter never told anyone but El about Neal’s visit.

     “Why do you think that he came here, Peter?” El asked fearfully. “Was he trying to intimidate you or make you feel vulnerable and threatened?”

     “No, El, it wasn’t anything like that,” he reassured her. “I think it was something that he said. As bizarre as it sounds, I think he’s looking for a connection to someone. If he’s doing what I think he is doing, then the connections that he has are tenuous and have a shelf life. He’s smart enough to know that.”

     “But Peter, everyone says that he is dangerous,” El argued.

     “Hon, believe me when I say that right now I am more of a threat to him than he is to me.” Peter wasn’t sure that his statement convinced his wife, but she let the matter drop.

~~~~~~~~~~

     The following week, the cast came off for good and Peter returned to his office at White Collar. His first case back was challenging. The “Dutchman” was elusive and frustrating. Every time the FBI thought they had gotten close, he would mysteriously disappear over the horizon. At one point, the White Collar team actually was confident that they had something tangible, but then their lead literally blew up in their faces. Weeks turned into months with no forward progress. Day after day, Peter studied an obscure Spanish Victory bond and didn’t know what to do with it. Right now, it remained just another dead end.

     Early one morning, Peter stepped outside his townhouse and scooped up his copy of “ _The New York Times_.” He needed his daily crossword fix to get through another day at the office. When he unfolded the newspaper, a yellow flower resembling a lily fell at his feet. Puzzled, he picked up the item to look at it more closely. Was the paper carrier an admirer sending his wife little presents? Slowly, Peter dismantled the origami creases and saw impeccably printed calligraphy on the page.

_“The Dutchman” = Curtis Hagen._

     Intrigued, Peter, “The Archeologist,” put the little missive in his pocket. Later, at his desk in the Federal building, he got to work researching the name. There was definitely potential to deem this art restorer a suspect, but no hard evidence that he was involved in anything illegal. You couldn’t turn someone’s life upside down on a hunch. However, a nervous book importer detained at the airport was another story. Peter had badgered the man and thought that he could eventually wear him down, but again this lead evaporated with the guy’s murder right under their noses.

     Another day brought another flower. This one contained the address of a warehouse down by the docks. With the aid of Jones’ cyber snooping, the FBI was able to link Curtis Hagen to that warehouse. Clandestine eavesdropping convinced them that a multitude of printing presses were humming away inside the walls. Hamstrung by judicial laws, the FBI could not obtain a search warrant on such slim pretenses. Even though federal stakeout teams had been sitting outside of the building for the last week, the only thing that they observed was tough muscle standing sentry duty. Peter was beyond exasperated because a murderous lawbreaker was getting away with his crimes.

     It seemed that Peter’s mysterious informant was also frustrated by the FBI’s lack of action. This time there was a more direct and daring approach. An email to Peter from an anonymous sender was succinct and definitive.

_“Want to catch Neal Caffrey? Bring SWAT to Hagen’s warehouse tomorrow 6AM. Don’t be late!!”_

     Peter had been harboring a lurking suspicion as to the identity of his little pen pal since that first flower had fallen at his feet. Was this Neal’s misguided and weird attempt to foster a connection? Maybe he was really setting Peter up for a world of hurt, and would laugh his ass off when it all blew back on the FBI agent. Well, it certainly couldn’t be anymore embarrassing than having evidence from an exploding safe rain confetti down on his shoulders. Peter decided to crawl out on a limb.

     At 5:45 AM, a SWAT team was quietly on site down by the docks. Peter stood fifty yards away with binoculars glued to his eyes. At precisely 6AM, a familiar tall, dark-haired figure dressed in a navy pea coat sauntered into view. He was quickly intercepted by the goons on guard duty and strong-armed into the warehouse. Peter gave the “Go” order, and helmeted officers broke down the door and streamed inside using “exigent circumstances” in the pursuit of a known criminal as the excuse to enter. When Peter looked around, Spanish Victory bonds were methodically spewing from several printing presses, and Curtis Hagen, aka “The Dutchman,” was arrested with a flourish. Neal Caffrey, on the other hand, had evaporated into thin air.

     Several months later, Peter’s plate was full once more trying to track down another phantom murderer. “The Ghost” was infamous and deadly, but nobody had ever seen his face or knew his true identity. During New York’s Fashion Week, he had struck again, leaving another corpse in his wake. Their only witness was a timid young model named Tara, and all she had heard was a disembodied voice during the commission of the crime.

     A uniformed bike messenger appeared at the front desk of the Federal Building one morning. He claimed that he had a delivery for Peter Burke in the White Collar office on the 21st floor. Of course, Peter was curious and had the delivery brought up. Inside of a large envelope was a tastefully ornate invitation to an elite Fashion Week party to be held the next night. The venue was an exclusive outdoor rooftop of one of the city’s skyscrapers. The bottom of the page contained specific handwritten details.

_“Bring Tara as your plus one. Make sure that she is introduced to a man named Govat. Please get a ‘ decent’ suit for the occasion!” _

     Peter felt like a fish out of water rubbing elbows with the glamorous and the powerful as Tara held onto the sleeve of his new suit like a lifeline. He kept looking around expecting to catch a glimpse of a handsome, dark-haired playboy with an agenda, but the place was crowded and the guests kept shifting. Gallantly, Peter led his anxious witness from one little clutch of people to the next. Making small talk was definitely not his forte. However, after about an hour, Tara tensed during one such brief conversation, and she signaled her escort that Govat was indeed the “Ghost” when she heard his voice.

     It should have been a piece of cake to take this man down, but the wily murderer managed to create chaos and escape unnoticed. Things went downhill from there when Tara was kidnapped and became a bargaining chip—her life for a miniature flash drive. Peter felt responsible and became point man for the exchange. Things were really dicey when Peter discovered that the depraved maniac had outfitted the terrified girl with an explosive accessory to cover his own getaway. Inexplicably, however, the villain couldn’t activate the volatile device. Later, Peter would learn that Govat’s cell phone—the triggering mechanism—had been repeatedly jammed by an insistent unknown number.

     Of course, Neal would have detailed knowledge of bombs and incendiary objects in his line of work as an arms merchant, Peter reminded himself. But Peter had to give credit where credit was due—Neal was one extremely innovative and clever boy, and Peter _really_ liked “smart”!

     These sentiments led Peter to begin questioning his own motives. Was it ethical to be proud of someone for doing the right thing when they were obviously still engaged in wrongdoing? Peter knew he was having a dichotomy of the soul regarding Neal Caffrey. Yes, Neal had helped the FBI take some very evil people off the streets. However, it was also very clear that Neal was still doing his own thing. That fact was hammered home in the months to come.

~~~~~~~~~~

   There had been no communication, written or otherwise, from the young con man for over four months. Peter didn’t know if he should be worried or relieved. He tended to have a bias for worrying. If Peter’s hunch about Neal’s “real” job was correct, then something big was probably in the works. Peter kept abreast of every worldwide happening that even hinted at armaments or terrorism. He could have skipped the international news because the horrifyingly dangerous threat occurred quite close to home.

     The story was carried by every major news network at length, with CNN devoting a complete hour to the developments as they unfolded. They rounded out their coverage with dire conjectures of what could have happened if the terrorist attempt had not been thwarted in time in the quiet little port of Baltimore, Maryland. A large freighter from South Korea had been steaming passively up the Chesapeake Bay towards the Locust Point Marine Terminal. The ship contained a vast cargo of vehicles from the Hyundai Corporation. The Coast Guard had boarded that vessel before it docked, and for almost twelve hours, specialists went from car to car dressed in protective Hazmat suits with Geiger counters in hand. Eventually, their equipment alerted them to the cache of nuclear fissionable material shielded in lead strapped to the undercarriage of several car chassis.

     The public was never informed of who dispatched this atomic threat, or who was to have taken possession of it when it reached its destination. The Hyundai Corporation was very vocal, staunchly denying any knowledge of the deadly payload. Homeland Security took the entire crew, representing at least fourteen different countries, into custody for questioning, while the Atomic Energy Corporation took possession of the radioactive material. Everyone speculated on what major city could have been the target, with most voicing their opinion that it was Washington DC, simply because of the proximity to Baltimore. The two cities were barely fifty miles apart.

     While everyone was focused on the big picture, a small article could have been easily overlooked buried on page three of the “ _Washington Post_.” The venerable Smithsonian Institute discovered a theft had taken place quite brazenly right under their roof. The Museum was in possession of a pristine collection of Renaissance portrait medals. Quite unique and rare, they were valuable and irreplaceable. While doing a routine daily inventory, the curators had made a peculiar discovery. An original Fioretino medal had been stolen and replaced by a doppelganger—a chocolate replica wrapped in foil. Peter’s old mentor, Phillip Kramer, had caught the case. Even though Phil could resemble a tenacious old dog in search of a bone, Peter seriously doubted that he would be able to apprehend the person responsible for the brash swap.

     When Peter read the article, he gave a heavy sigh. He pulled out his Caffrey ledger and added two new entries. On the left was the stupendous discovery of the makings of a nuclear bomb in Baltimore, Maryland. Across from that was the theft of a Smithsonian treasure in Washington DC. Peter was running out of colors to use to connect the dots on his chart.

     Yep, the two cities were just fifty miles apart—less than an hour’s drive down Interstate 95. Apparently, Neal had been in the neighborhood and decided to drop by the museum for a visit!


	5. Chapter 5

     Neal continued to be helpful. Peter was intrigued and wondered how the mysterious con man got his information. Nonetheless, Peter always tended to act on these anonymous tips that were eerily spot-on accurate. Sometimes, Neal made Peter work for the prize. Instead of spelling things out, chapter and verse, he would send clues via anagrams hidden in origami flowers, or messages that needed to be deciphered. Peter eventually bought a manual to aid him in the use of Rohan’s and Charlemagne’s ciphers. Other times, Peter had to embark on scavenger hunts to find those damn elusive blossoms. Nevertheless, no matter how high maintenance and labor intensive Neal’s methods were, Special Agent Peter Burke was solving crimes and his closing stats were soaring. The accolades from his superiors just kept coming over the course of many months.

     Peter and his team took down Lao Shen, a money launderer, at an exclusive Pai Gow club in Manhattan after eavesdropping on some very incriminating boasting. Peter didn’t even want to know how a bug in Shen’s watch was electronically re-routed into the FBI network.

     Likewise, the White Collar agents managed to recover a collection of politically significant jade elephants and restitute them to an extremely appreciative Japanese delegation. The con man probably thought that it was clever to draw a heart containing the names “Pierce Spelman” loves “Daniel Picah” on a piece of paper that had been folded into a tiny rendition of an origami pachyderm.

     It was especially satisfying to arrest Patrick Aimes and Alisha Teagan when stolen Iraqi artifacts were found to be blatantly displayed in Aimes’ gallery. That discovery accomplished freeing an innocent Captain John Mitchell and garnering some very intense gratitude from the man’s wife as well as his own. Elizabeth was certainly seeing Peter’s ghostwriter in a whole new light.

     Peter really could not fathom why he was suddenly receiving superhero comic books when White Collar was investigating a boiler room scenario that duped naïve investors. The team had been keeping their eye on two sketchy Wall Street hustlers, Daniel Reed and Avery Phillips, but they needed hard evidence of the pump and dump scheme. It all came together when Peter went undercover and was invited out to Avery’s Long Island mansion to view his prize collection of those colorfully illustrated little paper treasures. When the two entered the high-tech “vault,” an open ledger on a table provided all the evidence that was needed to bring charges. Peter thought back over the events of that afternoon, and he could have sworn that he saw a dark haired young man tricked out in “Town and Country” apparel shooting skeet on the lawn.

     Peter thought about Neal a lot, and not just when he was “helping.” He thought about him a lot when he wasn’t. Gaps of long weeks, sometimes months, punctuated their relationship, if that was even what you could call it. Peter suspected that those quiet times occurred because Neal was involved in his other line of work, and Peter waited anxiously, worried about his safety. He was sure that not everything that Neal did made it into the press, although much of it certainly played out in the headlines from time to time.

     During one of Neal’s quiescent periods, the BBC suddenly was abuzz with a dastardly plot that had been foiled thanks to vigilant Scotland Yard. They had discovered an empty subway carriage left on a defunct Underground Tube siding under Trafalgar Square on New Years Eve. It was found to be packed with high-grade explosives. If a detonation had occurred with the stroke of midnight, the casualties of holiday revelers would have numbered in the thousands.

     Just as astounding was the report of some irreplaceable royal jewels being removed from the Tower of London a few days later. Not only were they priceless, they also represented part of England’s proud heritage as a monarchy. Scotland Yard was baffled by that one and had no clues. “ _Seriously, Neal, how did you pull that off?”_

     A few months later, Neal’s “job” took him across the channel to the “City of Lights.” Two Algerian “tourists” were heading down the stairs to a Metro station when they were serendipitously detained by members of the elite French counter-terrorism task force known as SDAT. The cold-blooded, nefarious pair had backpacks filled with aerosol containers of lethal sarin nerve gas that they planned to activate once the speeding subway train was underway.

     A few days after the headlines had died down, and Parisian fears had quieted a bit, the Louvre raised its own hew and cry. Priceless paintings by Vermeer and Caravaggio had disappeared from their places of prominence within the hallowed halls of the security-conscious museum. “ _Damn it, Neal!”_

~~~~~~~~~~

     Elizabeth came in search of her husband one night, when his side of the bed remained empty well after midnight. She found him seated on the couch with his “Caffrey” ledger on his knees. He looked up guiltily, gave his wife a rueful little smile, and heaved an exaggerated sigh.

     “I’m sorry, Hon,” he said softly.

     “Peter, this is becoming an unhealthy obsession. Can’t you just let it rest?”

     El looked at the man that she loved and knew that she was asking the impossible. She was the only one who was privy to the knowledge of the unnatural liaison between cop and criminal, and Peter intended that it would stay that way.

     “What’s troubling you so much? He’s helping you solve crimes, right?”

     Peter thought for a brief minute before he answered his wife.

     “Yeah, he is helping, but I just wish that I could talk to him about other things. He gave me that opportunity once—he was reaching out, and I shut him down. He was sitting right here beside me, but I made sure to send him away. Now I think that was a mistake,” Peter concluded sadly.

     “If he were sitting here next to you right now, exactly what would you say to him, Peter?”

     Peter opened his mouth to respond, but no words came out. Finally, he admitted, “I don’t really know.”

~~~~~~~~~~

   _“Be careful what you wish for”_ …….. is how that old adage goes. It was just a few weeks later that Peter did get to speak with Neal, but under less than ideal circumstances. A tip from incarcerated villain, Matthew Keller, of all people, about bogus passports brought Peter into a suspected forger’s crosshairs. It had been a Machiavellian plot by Keller to have Peter abducted and held captive in a basement cell in the garment district of Manhattan. Peter had taunted Jason Lang, the accomplice, until the man decided that enough was enough, and had attempted to eliminate the federal irritant. His mistake was extending his gun through the bars of the enclosure. Peter took advantage of the opportunity to temporarily disabled the threat and obtain a cellphone.

     Time was definitely of the essence, he informed Reese Hughes and his team at White Collar when they took his frantic call.

     “Just stay on the line, Peter,” Hughes advised, “so that we can trace the call and send a SWAT team.”

     Suddenly, there was a distinct beep like an alert from “call waiting,” and Peter heard Neal’s clear voice join the conversation.

     “Tell me what you have to work with in your surroundings, Peter,” he asked calmly, as if they were having a conversation about the Mets. “Describe the locking mechanism of the cell. I’m going to talk you through a jailbreak, Buddy!”

     Peter obediently followed instructions to obtain a filament from a light bulb that he was to connect to the battery of the phone. The ingenious idea was to trip the power circuit in the wall. The last agitated words that he heard before the connection was broken were Hughes’ strident ones demanding to know how someone had managed to hack into a secure FBI phone line!

     Everything ended well, and now Peter was home again hugging his distraught wife to his chest.

     “Peter, I could have lost you,” she whimpered.

     “But you didn’t, and I am safe right here with you now,” he soothed.

     “You know, Peter, if Neal Caffrey walked though our door right now, I would make him the most sumptuous dinner imaginable,” she vowed.

     “If Neal Caffrey walked though our door right now,” he answered wryly, “I’d have to arrest him.”

     “No you wouldn’t, Peter, because I wouldn’t let you. I’d hide your badge and your gun,” El proclaimed.

     Peter took a deep breath. “I know that I owe him, El. Actually, he has saved my life on two occasions. But I’m a lawman, Hon. I just can’t make exceptions because I like someone. Neal is capable of doing so much good, but he still insists on breaking the law whenever it suits him. I would have to take him in.”

     El looked up at him with wise eyes. “Maybe you need to see the man, Peter, and not the con.”

~~~~~~~~~~

     Almost three months later, Peter’s resolve to uphold the law was put to the test. It was a pleasant Friday evening. He had a bottle of beer in his hand, a Knicks game was on the tube, El was reading a novel beside him on the couch, and Satchmo was curled at his feet. He was buoyed up by finally getting a break in the Mortensen loan scandal. He and his team would pick up the thread on Monday. Yep, life was good.

     Suddenly, Satchmo interrupted the blissful harmony by standing abruptly and rushing to the back door. His distressed whining got both El and Peter’s concerned attention. There was no eager tail wagging or protective growling, only frenzied scratching and whimpering. If a dog could look worried, then that’s how Peter interpreted Satch’s expressive face.

     Both husband and wife went immediately to his side. Peter turned on the outside light and peered into the autumn night where he saw a dark, unmoving figure lying on the patio. Peter retrieved his gun and cautiously opened the door. The figure remained still, even though the yellow Lab rushed to its side and frantically tried to get a response by probing with his nose and one paw. Peter moved forward and pushed the dog away. He tentatively placed two fingers alongside a man’s neck and felt a weak, thready pulse. Placing his revolver on the ground, he gently rolled the person onto his back and was startled to see Neal Caffrey’s thin, battered face before him in the dim porch light.

     “Neal,” Peter breathed in a rush.

     The young man moaned softly and sluggishly opened his eyes. A weak hand came up to grasp Peter’s shirtfront. “Help me, Peter. Please help me,” the con man whispered before his hand fell back onto the patio.

     Peter and El struggled to carry the frail, almost unresponsive young man into the house where they arranged him on the couch. El had hurried to the kitchen, returning with a wet dishtowel that she was using to dab at the extensive dried blood on his face. When she brushed dark hair back from his forehead, her hand encountered hot, feverish skin.

     “Peter, he’s burning up,” she said fearfully.

     Peter was conducting his own investigation, running his hands down Neal’s torso to search for any evidence of a wound. As his big hands glided over prominent ribs, Neal gave a pathetic cry and his eyes flew open.

     “Don’t, please. Hurts,” he hissed.

     Peter eased up a filthy Henley as gently as he could. What he saw made his stomach drop. The areas on Neal’s skeletal sides were so deep purple, they bordered on black. Peter would bet his next paycheck that several ribs were broken. The rest of Neal’s chest and abdomen were covered in precise cuts, lacerations, round Taser marks, and patches of other reddened areas that looked as if they could have been burn marks as well. Some of the wounds and burns appeared to be in various stages of healing, but others were definitely infected with obvious accumulations of pus. It didn’t take a medical degree to figure out that Neal had been starved and tortured by some depraved individuals and was very ill.

     “He needs a hospital, Peter,” El said urgently.

     Neal’s eyes suddenly flew open and he again grabbed for Peter’s shirt.

   “No hospital, please, no hospital,” he begged, but then his plea turned into a wet-sounding cough. The young man clutched at his ribs as the spasms continued, and tears rolled from beneath tightly squinted lids. Afterward, he fell back weakly and valiantly sought to catch his breath.

     “Neal, you’re hurt very badly and I don’t know how to take care of you. You need a doctor’s attention,” Peter argued.

     Neal’s eyes had taken on a manic sheen as he stared at Peter. “Call 227 09 …..”—the rest of the digits were barely audible and turned into a moan.”

     “Call who, Neal? I couldn’t get all the numbers,” Peter coaxed.

     “He’ll know what to do,” Neal mumbled. “Please, Peter, please just do this for me. Call him.”

     It took several more tries before Peter could arouse Neal enough to get all seven digits, but he didn’t have an area code to preface them. What if Neal wanted Peter to call his suspected government back-up team? Would they likely be in New York or Washington? Peter was in deep, uncharted territory, but one look at El’s pleading expression made him pull out his cell phone and punch in the New York City “212” area code for Manhattan followed by the numbers that Neal had finally provided. If this didn’t work, he wasn’t sure what he would try next. However, after five rings, the call was picked up and a gruff, suspicious voice demanded clarification.

     “Who is this and why are you calling me?”

     Peter’s tone was just as firm. “Someone who needs help asked me to call this number. I’m not even sure why I’m doing this. Maybe we just better forget that I called.”

     “Wait! Don’t hang up. Exactly who needs my help?”

     “Someone named Neal,” Peter answered tentatively.

     “What happened to him,” the anonymous voice quickly demanded?

     “He just showed up on my doorstep tonight, barely coherent, and beaten to a pulp. Actually, it looks as if someone has starved and tortured him,” Peter admitted. “Look, maybe this was a mistake. I probably should be calling the paramedics instead of you.”

     “I’ll be at your house in twenty minutes. Just keep him alive until I can get there.”

     Then the line went dead in his hand. Whoever this person was, he hadn’t asked an address or directions. However, if he was going to arrive in twenty minutes, then he was definitely close by. Peter instinctively donned his shoulder harness and seated his gun in place. He felt as if he was about to take a dive down a rabbit hole!

     Neal seemed to have surrendered to a state of unconsciousness. El had one of the con man’s hands in hers, and Peter could see an angry red circle around Neal’s wrist. Without saying a word, his wife opened her clenched fist so that Peter could see the torn, jagged nails and the raw abrasions on his long fingers. It looked as if he had tried to claw his way out of somewhere. _God, Neal, where have you been?_ Peter then turned his concentration to watching the shallow rise and fall of Neal’s chest, and mentally reviewing the steps for administering CPR.  _Just hold on, Buddy!_

     It wasn’t quite a quarter of an hour later when there was a knock on the back door. Peter truly did not know who or what he expected to find on his doorstep this time. A throng of black-clad ninjas on an extraction mission was not entirely in the realm of the unbelievable. What he was certainly not prepared to see was a very short, bald, and bespectacled little man with a purple plaid scarf around his neck, whose hands were overflowing with two huge, beat-up duffle bags.

     “Where is he, Suit?” The strange apparition demanded as he roughly pushed past Peter. For a minute, Peter envisioned a tiny Chihuahua who thought he was a Rottweiler.

     But before Peter could react, El called anxiously, “He’s in here!”

     The newcomer immediately put his bags down and began extracting a pen light and a stethoscope. He listened intently to various parts of Neal’s chest and aimed the light into dilated pupils. Then a blood pressure cuff made an appearance from the depths of one of the duffle bags. As the stranger watched the little dial intently, his face gave nothing away, so Peter had no idea how dire the results were. Then the man’s hands ghosted over Neal’s torso and extremities, and this gained him a weak response from the young man.

     “Are you from the government?” Peter demanded to know.

     The newcomer gave a haughty snort and looked down his nose at Peter. His solemn eyes were magnified behind the thick lenses.

     “Please, I would never allow myself to sink so low as to be tainted by the stench of that cesspool!”

     “Then why are you here,” Peter challenged.

     “Because Neal is my friend,” was the succinct answer, and Peter’s gut told him that this was the truth.

     The myopic man then sat back on his heels and coolly regarded the two people before him as if trying to make up his own mind about something.

     “Look, my cursory evaluation is that Neal has pneumonia, among other problems. His lungs are congested and wet, most likely from near drowning. You can get that after waterboarding. He has several broken ribs, but I don’t think that any have punctured his lungs. The burns are from cattle prods, Tasers, and the large areas from a defibrillating machine. That is an effective means of torture as well if you put the person’s feet in water while applying the charge. Many of the lacerations and burns have become infected, so he probably sustained them a while ago. He is dehydrated, malnourished, septic and very near shock. In a nutshell, his life is precarious right now thanks to someone who probably has been methodically and maliciously trying to extract information from him. To say that he is in a tenuous condition at this time is an understatement. I don’t know if I can save him.”

     The visitor paused to take a breath. “I certainly can’t move him to treat him, so the big question is how do we proceed? What are your intentions, G-Man? After all, you called me rather than one of your minions.”

     “He should be in a hospital, _Mr. Whoever You Are_. He could die,” Peter argued.

     “A hospital is not an option for him right now. And yes, he may die. If that happens, I will take care of things so that his body disappears. Never fear, your hands will remain lily white. So, what’s it going to be, Suit?”


	6. Chapter 6

     In the end, Peter Burke, a respected FBI Agent and straight arrow, threw caution and good sense out the window. He hoisted an unconscious man over his shoulder and carried him up the stairs to the spare guestroom. The con man/escaped felon was now splayed out on a bed that only saw occupants on the infrequent occasions that Peter’s parents or his in-laws visited from out of town.

     The mysterious stranger had followed, placing his tote bags on the floor. He quickly extracted a pair of scissors from the recesses of one, and began to cut away Neal’s shirt to expose the horrific tableau. He then delicately turned the unresponsive man onto his side, and another graphic display was revealed. Neal’s back was crisscrossed with welts and lash marks that had bitten into his skin. Thankfully, none of those appeared to be infected.

     Peter helped to remove Neal’s shoes and his trousers until he was stripped down to his boxers. In the meantime, metal tubular segments were hastily assembled into an IV pole, and a bag of solution with a line was hung. With proficiency, the silent little man inserted a needle into the patient’s forearm, connected it to the tubing, and opened the stopcock so that fluid immediately started flowing into Neal’s vein. Then the mystery medic pulled three little vials from his cache and, one at a time, injected the contents into the lifesaving liquid.

     “Are you a doctor?” Peter asked.

     “No,” was the one word answer.

     “Then how do you know what you are doing?” Peter asked suspiciously.

     “I read a lot,” was the less than informative or reassuring answer.

     Then a disturbing question arose in Peter’s mind. “Did you ever treat me medically?”

     The little man looked up with an incredulous expression on his face.

     “Um …… why would I ever want to do that, Suit?”

     Peter didn’t know whether to be comforted or insulted. This whole thing was just so surreal! Maybe he would leave more questions for later.

     The miniature dynamo was now issuing directives. He told El to boil some water and to bring him a basin and some towels. After he had taken Neal’s temperature with a tympanic thermometer, he also demanded some cold packs. As he gently bathed Neal’s body with warm water and soap from a green plastic bottle, he looked at Peter with a sarcastic expression.

     “There’s no need for you to hover, Mr. FBI Agent. I’m not going to steal your silver. And you can probably ditch the firearm. Neither Neal nor I are a threat to you or the Missus.”

     Peter answered just as snarkily. “Look, Pal, I allowed you into my home and I have absolutely no idea who you are. I have a right to be suspicious.”

     “Of course you do. Paranoia and mistrust are prerequisites for government civil service. You need a name to feel more at ease? Fine, call me ‘ _Moz_ ’—just plain ‘ _Moz_.’ So nice to make your acquaintance, Suit. See, we’re on a first name basis. Happy now?”

     Peter ignored the confrontational taunting and simply asked quietly, “Is he going to make it, _Just Plain Moz?_ ”

     “Only time will tell,” Mozzie replied honestly. “He’s young and has the stamina which youth provides, so that’s in his favor.”

     Peter gazed at a bruised and bloodied man who, when stripped of all his fancy clothes, looked like a college kid. “Yeah, he is young, but it’s the stamina that I would question right now. I think it’s a miracle that he made it as far as he did,” Peter mused.

     The silence between the two continued until Peter thought to ask another question.

     “If you’re such a good friend, why didn’t he come to you instead of landing on my doorstep?”

     “He probably didn’t know where I was because I tend to move around a lot,” Mozzie replied. “Or maybe it’s like that old saying, ‘Better to deal with the devil you know,’ yada, yada, yada.”    

     Peter chose to ignore the latest barb and asked, “Who did this to him? I have a feeling that you know the whole story, ‘ _Dr.’ Moz_.”

     “Even if I did, it is not my story to tell,” Mozzie answered softly, as he busied himself applying thick white salve and sterile dressings to Neal’s cuts and burns.

     When he finished that task, he tucked cold packs under the young man’s arms to try to reduce the raging fever. Then he covered his patient tenderly with a thin sheet, opened a new bag of fluids for infusion, and perched on the bedside chair like a sphinx.

     “These people,” Peter pushed, “are they likely to track him down here?” Suddenly, Peter thought it might be a good idea to keep his gun close after all.

     Mozzie came out of his trance. “I think this would be the last place that they would look, Suit, so here we are.”

         “Yeah,” Peter agreed faintly, “So here you are.”

~~~~~~~~~~

     Mozzie remained by Neal’s bedside for three days, repeating the process of changing dressings, monitoring a fever, and adding IV fluids. El brought him sandwiches and plates of casserole for which he politely and profusely expressed his gratitude. They seemed to have bonded during this vigil, but Mozzie still remained guarded and prickly around Peter. And Peter was determined always to be around. There was no way that he was leaving his wife alone with this bald little question mark, so he had called in to the White Collar office early Monday morning and claimed to have a persistent flu bug. Most likely, it would take him out of the office for the entire week. Peter felt guilty for weaving such a tangled web of deceit, but not enough to change the situation at this juncture. He had to see this thing through to whatever its natural conclusion would be.

     As the days passed, Neal floated in and out of consciousness, but was never completely lucid. Most times when he roused, he would moan or murmur gibberish that neither Peter nor Mozzie could understand. During those brief intervals, Mozzie would prop him up and try to get fluids into him, a spoonful at a time. Peter marveled at the patient persistence the little man displayed. Finally, on day four, the fever subsided and Neal’s eyes fluttered open. He actually appeared to be tracking the people in his surroundings, and gave his “ _doctor_ ” a weak smile.

     “Hey Moz,” he said softly.

     “Hey yourself, mon frère.” Mozzie answered fondly.

     When Peter moved into view, Neal’s eyes widened.

     “Agent Burke” …… was all that he managed hoarsely.

     “Hello, Neal. I’m really glad to see you’re among the living again. You had us worried for awhile.”

     “How long was I out, and how did I wind up here?” the patient asked cautiously.

     “It’s been almost four days, Neal,” Mozzie supplied. “As to why you came here, now that’s the burning question, isn’t it.”

     “I found you outside on my patio,” Peter explained. “I’m not sure how you got there. Care to enlighten me?”

    Neal looked uncomfortable. “I’m not sure that I remember.”

     Peter grunted at that blatant untruth, but didn’t pursue the thread of the conversation because El suddenly bounced into the room after hearing their voices.

     “Neal! Oh honey, it’s so good to see you awake and actually alert,” she gushed as she sat down on the side of the bed and grabbed Neal’s hand.

     Peter found it amusing to witness a distinct blush creep up Neal’s pale cheeks. El could be a force of nature, and “Mr. Sophistication” wasn’t so smooth and debonair right now. Neal had never even met Peter’s wife, but apparently, for the last few days, she had seen him at his worst and that embarrassed the con man.

     Finally, Peter took pity on him. “Hon, maybe you could bring something for Neal to drink now that he is awake.”

     Husband and wife, as always, were telepathically in sync. El got the message, and hurried downstairs to give Neal time to regain his emotional equilibrium once again. Peter and Mozzie escorted a woozy patient to the bathroom, and then back to bed. On the return trip, the young man was audibly wheezing and had trouble catching his breath, so Peter left an in-depth interrogation on the back burner for now.

     Neal’s progress back to health was slow. Peter could hear the deep, paroxysmal coughing sometimes lasting into the early hours of the morning. When Peter quietly discussed this with Mozzie, he was told that coughing aided in breaking up the lung congestion, and had to be endured. However, it was hard to watch Neal go pale and break out into a sweat as these spasms shook his injured ribs. But the con man never complained, and was unfailingly respectful and appreciative of anything that was done for him.

     By the second week, Mozzie came and went with abandon, bringing home bags full of fresh vegetables, fruits, tofu, honey, and a cornucopia of little natural homeopathic bottles. Peter could hear him and El discussing the merits of antioxidants, mineral supplements, and probiotics as the blender whirred noisily in the background concocting mysterious green slushies. Peter certainly did not envy Neal, who bravely managed to get them down with determined effort.

     Peter had returned to White Collar, but checked in with his wife every hour at first, and then a bit less frequently as the days wore on. He also told no one of his houseguest’s presence. He wanted to get Neal’s side of the story before he decided on a course of action. He finally found himself alone with his former nemesis during the third week. El had decided it was time for a beauty salon appointment, and Mozzie was off on some mysterious outing.

     Peter pulled a chair alongside of Neal’s bed. The convalescing man was attired in a pair of loose running pants and a faded t-shirt from Peter’s Quantico days that El had provided. The irony wasn’t lost on the older man as he stared at the Bureau’s insignia emblazoned across Neal’s chest. Even though the shirt was baggy on the young man’s lean torso, it looked as if he might have put on a few pounds, and his color was definitely better. Perched on the bed with his knees bent and his arms encircling them, he seemed comfortable and relaxed.

     “I think it’s time for a little heart-to-heart,” Peter informed Neal solemnly.

     Neal sighed in resignation and a tenseness returned to his body. “Yeah, I was wondering when we were going to get to that. Actually, it would really be a relief to hear what you have in store for me. Just tell me—am I going back to prison?”

     “Well, that depends on what you have to tell me,” Peter replied.

     “What exactly do you want to know,” Neal asked warily.

     “Well, for starters, who beat the hell out of you and why?”

     Neal began picking at a loose thread on the bed’s comforter and avoided Peter’s eyes.

     “Just some guys who wanted some information that they thought I had. It was about a job, and when I couldn’t tell them what they wanted to hear, they got nasty. They were just thugs, Peter, not as charming and chivalrous as I am. My world is full of them, and sometimes people get hurt. It’s just the way it is.”

     “Tell me about that world, Neal,” Peter persisted.

     “You already know about that world, Peter—thieves, con artists, scammers—didn’t we have this conversation once before?”

     “Stop the misdirection, Buddy. You know that I’m talking about the world where your alter-ego dabbles in espionage and rubs shoulders with terrorists.”

     Neal tried out that wide-eyed “who me?” expression, but Peter wasn’t buying it. When he just continued with his hard stare, Neal finally relented and had to fill the silence.

     “You got that all wrong, Peter. I am not a terrorist, nor do I work for any.”

     The FBI agent finally had enough of beating around the bush. “Neal, I _know_ that some clandestine faction within our government is running you. Your mission is to ferret out terrorist threats for them under the guise of brokering deals with the devil. It’s all smoke and mirrors, but the bottom line is, somebody owns you and you are dancing to their tune.”

     Neal just stared, his jaw set and stubborn, so Peter continued with his assumptions.

     “I think that your cover got blown this time around, and the ‘nasty’ guys who were holding and torturing you wanted information and names. That’s what you refused to share. How am I doing so far?”

     There was still silence on Neal’s end, so Peter again took up the narrative.

     “What I don’t get is why you didn’t have any support? Where was the team that was supposed to have your back? Is anybody from your little cadre even looking for you now, or was messing up and having your identity exposed a mortal sin that can’t be forgiven? Did that make you expendable, so they left you to twist in the wind? Is that why you wound up at my door? Was it because you couldn’t go back to them—failure was not an option. Neal, you are usually very good at everything that you do, so tell me how it went so wrong. What was the grave mistake that you made?”

     That pricked Neal’s ego and he finally responded heatedly.

     “I didn’t make any mistake! Somebody was more into greed than altruism!”

     “Who was that, Neal? Was it your handler who set you up?” Peter asked.

     With an effort, Neal got his temper in check, and took a deep breath. He had to evaluate this surprise revelation, and all of its ramifications. Apparently, this very perceptive FBI agent knew a lot more than he had any right to know. Neal could continue to lie, or skirt the truth, but making a convincing argument was a longshot because Peter was the wildcard in the deck, and Neal was all out of aces.

     Finally, the young man decided that he was tired of the whole cloak and dagger travesty that his life had become. He admitted to himself that he had no control over this situation—maybe he never really had any control in his covert life. It had all been an illusion to keep him risking his neck to get the masters in the shadows the results that they craved. Maybe it was time to end the charade and re-join the human race. So, he looked up at Peter and began his journey back with the first tenuous steps.

     “There wasn’t just one handler, Peter. There was a rolling roster, a different one each time, and I never met even one face to face. They didn’t have names, just numbers—numbers to identify themselves, numbers for contact. Everything was choreographed through phone calls and dead drops. But the only way that my cover could have been blown this time was if someone set me up, most likely for bigger bucks than the government was paying them. I have no idea who that was. That’s why this whole torture thing was a bust for the bad guys. Even if I had wanted to, I couldn’t have given them anything.”

     Now that Peter had managed to put a chink in Neal’s armor, he wanted the whole story.

    “Tell me how it all started.”

     So Neal did. He had been leading a double life for so long that he sometimes felt that the real Neal Caffrey had faded into oblivion. He told of the meeting in a prison infirmary with an anonymous puppeteer, the subtle threats to those he cared about, and the lure of a life outside of prison bars. He spoke of the never-ending loneliness, the fear, and the nightmares. When the saga concluded, he suddenly felt as if a weight that he had been carrying was a bit lighter because now someone else knew the truth and was sharing his burden.

     Peter was quiet for a few minutes. He had suspected a scenario resembling this, but hearing it from Neal’s lips was chilling and so very sad. “Does anyone else know about this—perhaps your friend Mozzie?”

     Neal shook his head. “I never told Moz, but I think he’s guessed the broad strokes. He’s a really smart guy and a dyed in the wool conspiracy theorist. I probably validate every fearful, anti-government sentiment under that little bald dome of his.”

     Now came the moment of truth for Peter. “Neal, have you ever killed anyone?”

     Blue eyes looked deep into brown ones as the con man answered. “No, Peter, I never took another person’s life. That propaganda was spread around to enhance the dangerous mystique surrounding Neal Caffrey.”

     Peter believed that Neal was sincere. Now he wanted to see how far that newfound honesty extended. “However, you still managed to pull off incredible thefts and heists in your spare time.”

     Neal smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “Well, I had to preserve my reputation, Peter.”

     “And your handlers never tried to rein you in?” Peter asked incredulously.

     Neal now had the grace to look uncomfortable.  "I think that they considered those little peccadillos a necessary concession, and they never made waves about them.”

     Peter just rolled his eyes. He remained quiet for a long time, which made Neal squirm.

     “So I guess my little side hobby is going to earn me a one-way ticket back to federal prison, isn’t it.”

     Peter thought that it was time for a moment-of-truth talk.

     “Neal, if you are convicted again of more crimes, you would be looking at ‘life’ behind bars this time. Nobody is going to be coming to offer you a deal. You have been burned as an operative, and are collateral damage as far as your fiendish friends in that government clique are concerned. Actually, you would probably be considered a loose canon because of all the clandestine knowledge that you possess. That presents a danger to some very powerful people. They have a long reach just as do the vengeful terror cells that you have unmasked. I would venture a guess that your tenure in prison would be a very short one because somebody would take you out. You would have no way to protect yourself once you were locked up. It would be as easy as shooting fish in a barrel.”

     “Wow, what an inspirational pep talk,” Neal said sarcastically.

     Then, with a hopeful look on his face, Neal ventured a suggestion. “You know, Peter, I could just disappear. I’m pretty good at that when I put my mind to it.”

     The FBI agent was quiet for several long minutes, his brow creased in concentration, before he responded rather emphatically.

     “No, Buddy, that’s not a fitting end to your story. The Neal Caffrey saga definitely needs closure!”


	7. Chapter 7

     Two months later, an anonymous tip found its way to the White Collar office, and to Peter Burke’s specific attention. His relentless pursuit of escaped felon, Neal Caffrey, was common knowledge in the department, so everyone funneled any information regarding the criminal to him as a courtesy. According to the whispered intel, Caffrey was about to do some business with a dodgy salvage yard owner in Alphabet City. The unknown informant had alluded to a shipment of illegal assault rifles.

     Peter had Jones check out the salvage yard’s proprietor. He had a sheet with a previous charge for possession of stolen goods. The charge was eventually dropped before indictment for lack of evidence, but it still put the guy on the local PD’s radar. Normally, the cops would have been all over this, but the tip had come into the FBI, and Peter was not about to share. If this was, indeed, Caffrey, then this collar was going to be all his!

     Peter, Jones, and Diana endured three long and tedious days spent in the surveillance van parked across the street from the establishment in question. They ate plastic wrapped sandwiches and drank stale coffee as they scanned the occasional suspicious-looking customer who picked their way through a junk-strewn front entrance. Two days before, dressed down in old jeans and tattered sweatshirt, Jones had ventured inside to get the lay of the land. He reported that the interior of the shop was just as much of a convoluted mess as the outside. He could not get a visual on what lay behind a door behind the counter.

     Late in the afternoon of the third day, a tall, slim man, dressed in black jeans and a black windbreaker, appeared and slowly made his way through the rubble.

     Diana immediately tensed. “This may be Caffrey,” she informed her boss.

     Peter grabbed a pair of binoculars, as did the other two. The con man chose that moment to turn around and cautiously survey his surroundings. They were able to see his face clearly for a positive identification.

     “Okay, people, let’s do this.” Peter’s sense of an adrenalin rush was on the upswing.

     He handed a vest first to Jones, then Diana. Finally, he extracted his own from the bottom of the pile.

     “We have to assume that Caffrey is armed and dangerous. We know that he has no problem killing people who get in his way. So, we proceed with the utmost caution.”

     Peter felt it necessary to issue that warning even though his fellow agents knew the drill. Each drew their own weapon and chambered a round. Everybody was now locked and loaded as they furtively exited the van and spread out through the yard to the door’s entrance. Using hand gestures, Peter motioned for his two agents to go through the front while he made circling gestures indicating to them that he would secure the rear of the building. All crept forward towards their target.

     Jones and Diana burst through the front door startling an obese middle-aged man who took one look at their drawn weapons and held up his hands.

     “The guy who just came in here—where did he go?” Jones demanded.

     The frightened proprietor of the establishment wanted to distance himself from the ominous threat in front of him, so he immediately pointed to the door at the rear. Jones and Diana hastily barreled through and began tripping over assorted metal junk in their path. They were not even halfway towards the rear of the building when they heard two distinct shots. By the time that they finally were able to reach the exterior, the action was all over, but what they beheld was chilling, nonetheless.

     Their boss was on the ground, but had levered himself to a semi-seated posture. He had his service revolver in his hand and a dazed look on his face. Not twenty feet from him lay Neal Caffrey. His black windbreaker was splayed open revealing a white shirt awash with copious amounts of bright red blood. He was on his back, his left arm somehow twisted under his inert body. A Sig Sauer handgun was clutched in his right hand. Jones, with his own revolver at the ready, cautiously moved toward the fallen man and kicked the gun from his curled fingers. Caffrey didn’t move. Diana immediately crouched down beside Peter.

     “Boss, are you okay. Were you hit?” She was beside herself with worry.

     Peter looked at her as if he was not really seeing her, but was re-playing in his mind what had just happened moments before her arrival. He was also clutching at his chest and valiantly trying to take a deep breath.

     “I confronted him when he came out that back door,” he said between gasps, his sentences choppy. “He had a gun in his hand. I identified myself and warned him to put down his weapon. The damned fool didn’t listen. He raised his gun and fired at me. I think the only thing that saved me was my vest, but I was knocked down by the impact. I was afraid that he was going to fire again, so I just reacted. I aimed for center mass and pulled the trigger.”

     Diana was busy inspecting the hole in Peter’s body armor when he pulled away, stood up, and staggered toward where Caffrey lay. He crouched down and gazed at the fallen man who had his head turned to the side with his eyes closed, and was so very still. He had to know if he had killed someone just a few minutes before. The wound must have been an arterial one because the resulting spray had drenched the con man’s neck as well as his chest. Peter didn’t have gloves so he was not about to put his fingers in that mess to feel for a carotid pulse. Instead, he placed them on Caffrey’s wrist.

     “I don’t feel anything. Jones, you try.”

     Jones was just as unsuccessful. “He’s dead, Peter, and I’m glad that it was him instead of you or one of us.”

    When Peter still looked stricken, Diana sat down beside her boss while Jones called the ME at the coroner’s office. Diana doggedly sought to get her mentor to face reality.

     “Peter, I know that killing another person is never an easy thing to accept. But you did what you had to do under the circumstances. Caffrey was lethal; he was a rabid animal that needed to be put down. This was a righteous shooting; you have to see that.”

     When Peter just looked at her with blank eyes, she advised, “Maybe you should go to the ER and have your chest checked out.”

     That got a response from the dazed man. “It’s okay, Diana. I’ll just be sporting one hell of a bruise tomorrow. After the body is taken to the morgue, I need to write up my report. I discharged my weapon and killed a perp, so I need to make sure that everything gets into writing while it is fresh in my mind. I don’t need OPR breathing down my neck on this one.”

     Just then, an ambulance rolled into sight. Their response time was indeed rapid, although their ministrations certainly were not necessary. A short, bald man with bottle-bottom glasses and a young, attractive African-American woman, both attired in green scrubs, hastily made their assessments. They then loaded the corpse onto a stretcher and zipped up a black body bag. There was no need for a siren as they pulled away headed to the morgue.

     As per protocol during the investigation into his actions, Peter was placed on administrative desk duty in the ensuing days. Agents made it a point to stop by and congratulate him for taking down one of the FBI’s Most Wanted. That a human being had lost his life in the process seemed of little consequence to them.

     Even smarmy Agent Ruiz from Organized Crime swanned into White Collar one day to sneer, “Who would have thought that an art crimes Sherlock Holmes could be such a badass!”

     On the third day, Reese Hughes beckoned Peter into his office.

     “Peter, I just got a copy of the death certificate forwarded to me from the ME—a Doctor Someone or other,” he said as he squinted at the bottom of the paper.

     “Is it an unwritten law that doctors make sure that their penmanship is illegible?” Hughes groused.

     Then the old curmudgeon continued his conversation. “The cause of Caffrey’s death is listed as a transection of the ascending aorta which caused him to immediately bleed out at the scene. His weapon was untraceable because the serial number had been filed down, but a bullet from that gun matched the round recovered from your body armor. Apparently, the bullet from your gun got lost in the shuffle, a snafu on the ME’s end, but of little consequence in the grand scheme of things because the whole scenario was pretty cut and dried.

     You fired in self-defense because your life was in danger from a malicious, lethal killer. OPR is satisfied and is closing its investigation. The city is even off the hook for the expense of burying the bastard. Inexplicably, some elderly, wealthy matron living on Riverside Drive claimed the body and had it cremated. That’s one for the books,” Hughes snorted.

     “It’s really not so strange,” Peter said wryly. “A wealthy older woman fits right into his wheelhouse. Caffrey was a con man who finagled himself into the good graces of vulnerable, naïve persons, especially unattached, lonely women. Even after they realized that they were just a mark to him, they still held onto the dream that he would return one day and they could make him see the error of his ways. He was young and handsome; maybe they viewed him as a recalcitrant kid, perhaps a misunderstood grandson who needed guidance.”

     “Well, whatever,” Hughes took up the conversation again as he handed Peter his gun and badge. “Now it’s back to business. We have plenty other bad guys to hunt down.”

   Peter returned to his own office, and finally, after three days, took a breath that wasn’t fraught with tension. He momentarily closed his eyes and thought, _“My God, we actually managed to pull it off!”_

     Even though the co-conspirators had been meticulous in their planning over the previous weeks, the margin for error was a huge sea of “what ifs.” You just could not plan for every contingency, and Neal repeatedly tried to get Peter to understand that sometimes you just had to fly by the seat of your pants. However, Peter was compulsive and wanted all of his ducks in a row. After all, Neal’s life and his own career were on the line, so they rehearsed and rehearsed until it all became second nature. When everyone was comfortable with their roles, it was time to set the wheels in motion.

     Mozzie was responsible for the anonymous tip regarding the gun sale. He had buried the whispers deep so that they could never be traced back to him, nor could the Sig Sauer handgun that he had obtained for Neal.

   A little Sunday afternoon drive into a forest preserve in nearby New Jersey was next. Peter had wrapped his protective vest around a thick tree trunk and fired a round into it from the illegal gun. He made sure that particular vest was under the pile placed in the van, the last one to be picked up by himself.

     Neal had fiddled with the black powder from a cartridge that Peter placed in his own revolver, and then the con man did the same for the one in his gun. Peter had chambered that bogus round while still in the van. There would still be a lot of impressive bang, but no lethal projectiles would be exiting either gun barrel when they took their first and only shots that day.

     Neal’s shirt, soaked in pig’s blood treated with an anticoagulant to keep it red and glistening, had been hidden under his windbreaker when he was initially spotted. He had flung the jacket open as he lay down on the ground and assumed his death pose. It certainly had looked gruesome; Peter could personally attest to that.

     Neal also made sure to have his left arm wedged under his body so that only the right one was accessible. Temporary pressure applied to a small, hard rubber ball secreted in his armpit successfully occluded the brachial artery that eventually branched off into the radial artery in his wrist. Ergo, no pulse was discernable to Jones.

     Peter never asked how Mozzie managed to commandeer an emergency vehicle. Sometimes ignorance was best. Peter also assumed that Mozzie was responsible for the death certificate, but Neal was an expert forger in his own right, so that could have been his work. When his “body” had been claimed and cremated, Neal Caffrey ceased to exist for any interested parties. However, Peter made sure to note the name on a flawless new passport that he insisted Neal show him. Yep, Caffrey was one talented forger!

~~~~~~~~~~

     Over the course of the next year, Reese Hughes took a well-earned retirement, and Peter now warmed the chair that he had vacated. Peter was ASAC and ran his own ship. He missed fieldwork, but, as his wife sometimes teased him, he wasn’t getting any younger. El was right; Peter needed to stop and smell the roses from time to time. Crime never took a holiday, so it would be there when Peter returned from a vacation.

     Almost a year to the day of that fateful one in which Caffrey was “killed,” he and Elizabeth took a long delayed trip to Europe. Actually, their first stop was Paris, France. They had reservations, courtesy of a friend, at the luxurious Four Seasons George V Hotel, just steps from the iconic Champs-Elysees. They were meeting up with that same acquaintance for dinner this evening at the five-star “Taillevent” restaurant, also located on that beautiful boulevard. El stoically endured all of Peter’s protestations about dressing up in a monkey suit just to have something as unappetizing as slimy slugs in garlic butter.

     “Now, Peter,” she shushed him. “He’s bringing a friend, so you know that you want to make a good impression.”

     Peter wasn’t sure just what his reaction would be when he saw “ _Henri Renait_.” However, when he was confronted with the tall, dark-haired, blue-eyed man before him, he instinctively engulfed him in a heartfelt hug that was returned with equal fervor. Elizabeth finally got to step in, and her eyes sparkled as she planted a kiss on Henri’s cheek.

     “If my college French isn’t too rusty, doesn’t _‘Renait’_ mean reborn?” She whispered in his ear so that only he could hear.

     The young man favored her with a sly smile, then stepped back so that they could see the exquisitely beautiful young woman behind him. “Peter, Elizabeth—I’d like you to meet Ariane.”

     During a dinner that thankfully contained some meat and potatoes, Peter just kept staring at the charming and stunningly attractive young French mademoiselle across from him. She had thick, dark hair that framed a flawless porcelain face, and opalescent blue eyes. She and Neal could have passed for siblings, and Peter let his mind conjure up images of the beautiful children that they could make together. She was also refreshingly wholesome, intelligent and dedicated to a medical career at the nearby _Hospital des Enfants Malades._

     However, being on call as a pediatric resident put restrictions on her time, and, after dinner, she reluctantly excused herself to return for her tour of duty at the hospital. Neal gallantly put her into a cab at the restaurant’s door, and then turned to Peter and Elizabeth.

     “Feel like a stroll along the Seine? It’s a beautiful night,” he cajoled.

     Elizabeth demurred, sensing that Peter and Neal needed some solitude with each other.

     “Oh honey, I think that jet lag has caught up with me. I’m going back to the hotel to try out that magnificent marble tub in that huge bathroom, and then I’m going to sink into thousand thread count sheets for about twelve hours. Why don’t you and Peter spend some time together?”

     So, it was just Peter and Neal who, shoulder to shoulder, made their way beside a peacefully flowing river with shadows glistening on the mirror of its surface. They spoke of many things, including the former con man’s new position as art restorer at the world-renowned Louvre.

     “Do they have any idea that they have allowed the fox into the henhouse?” Peter asked wryly.

     “Now, Peter, I’m a reformed fox,” Neal insisted. “Besides, they never knew it was me who paid them the occasional visit during off hours in the past.”

     Then Peter steered the conversation to a much more pleasant topic.

     “I like Ariane, Neal. She seems like a sweet young woman. Is this thing serious between the two of you?”

     “Yeah, it is. I love her, Peter, and she loves me, warts and all,” Neal explained.

     “Does that mean that you have told her about your illustrious past?” Peter asked incredulously.

     “I did,” Neal affirmed. “And miracles sometimes do happen, Peter, because she said that the past should remain just that because each day is a new beginning.”

     Finally, the two friends stopped to sit on a bench under an ornate, wrought-iron street lamp. It was then that Neal hesitantly took a small blue velvet box from his pocket, handed it to Peter, and urged him to open it. Inside was an exquisite square-cut blue diamond solitaire surrounded by smaller diamond baguettes. It sparkled impudently in the lamplight.

     “Does this mean what I think it does?” Peter asked softly. “Is the infamous, cavalier bon vivant formerly known as Neal Caffrey about ready to take the plunge into domesticity?”

     “Cut the sarcasm, Peter. Just tell me—do you think that she’ll like it?”

     “Well, thank God it’s not the McNally solitaire,” Peter smirked.

     “Now, Peter,” Neal clarified, “you know that little bauble was returned to the Scottish Royal Museum ages ago.”

     Peter stared into Neal’s suddenly earnest face and ceased the bantering. “It’s lovely, Neal, just as she is. You deserve to be happy, and I wish the both of you a long and good life together—the whole white picket fence scenario with lots of babies and a dog or two.”

     After a beat, he added with a mischievous grin, “Maybe you might even consider naming one of those offspring _Pierre!"_

 

The End


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